BDS Boycotts: Personal Reflections

On the way back from Jerusalem to Ben Gurion airport following a few weeks in Israel in 2016 I settled in expecting to doze off. As usual it was 1 a.m., and I was pretty well done in from nonstop travel. But every taxi cab driver, Jewish or Arab, wants to talk, and I always learn something from these nonacademic conversations. Before long I was hearing things I was not eager to know, but it brought home the human costs of nearly a century of conflict.

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Some Remarks on Judith Butler and Emmanuel Levinas

The reader may recall observations made in 2013 by Professor Bruno Chaouat of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities regarding the strange quotation, or misquotation, of Emmanuel Levinas by Judith Butler. In one of her recent books, Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism, Butler quotes Levinas as having said that Palestinians are “faceless.” Such a statement was obviously pure invention on her part and in no way figures in the text she claims it comes from: “Israël, éthique et politique.” Many of her epigones jumped to her defense, hardly allowing a serious debate on methods and ethics of scholarship.

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