Judith Butler follows Edward Said's late suggestion that through a
consideration of Palestinian dispossession in relation to Jewish
diasporic traditions a new ethos can be forged for a one-state solution.
Butler engages Jewish philosophical positions to articulate a critique
of political Zionism and its practices of illegitimate state violence,
nationalism, and state-sponsored racism. At the same time, she moves
beyond communitarian frameworks, including Jewish ones, that fail to
arrive at a radical democratic notion of political cohabitation. Butler
engages thinkers such as Edward Said, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt,
Primo Levi, Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin, and Mahmoud Darwish as she
articulates a new political ethic. In her view, it is as important to
dispute Israel's claim to represent the Jewish people as it is to show
that a narrowly Jewish framework cannot suffice as a basis for an
ultimate critique of Zionism. She promotes an ethical position in which
the obligations of cohabitation do not derive from cultural sameness but
from the unchosen character of social plurality. Recovering the
arguments of Jewish thinkers who offered criticisms of Zionism or whose
work could be used for such a purpose, Butler disputes the specific
charge of anti-Semitic self-hatred often leveled against Jewish
critiques of Israel. Her political ethic relies on a vision of
cohabitation that thinks anew about binationalism and exposes the limits
of a communitarian framework to overcome the colonial legacy of Zionism.
Her own engagements with Edward Said and Mahmoud Darwish form an
important point of departure and conclusion for her engagement with some
key forms of thought derived in part from Jewish resources, but always
in relation to the non-Jew.
Butler considers the rights of the dispossessed, the necessity of plural
cohabitation, and the dangers of arbitrary state violence, showing how
they can be extended to a critique of Zionism, even when that is not
their explicit aim. She revisits and affirms Edward Said's late
proposals for a one-state solution within the ethos of binationalism.
Butler's startling suggestion: Jewish ethics not only demand a critique
of Zionism, but must transcend its exclusive Jewishness in order to
realize the ethical and political ideals of living together in radical
democracy.
