Below is an email from Judith Butler to Glennda Testone, the Executive Director of the New York LGBT Community Center, concerning the Center's decision to cancel a "Party to End Apartheid" under pressure from donors.
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2011
To: Glennda@gaycenter.org
From: Judith Butler
Subject: censorship at the NY LGBT Center
Dear Glennda Testone,
I am writing to communicate my outrage and sorrow that our movement has come to this point where it refuses to house an organization that is fighting for social justice. I was appalled to see the very ignorant and hateful messages that supported your center's decision to ban Siegebusters from holding an event on the topic of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The colleagues at Jewish Voice for Peace and other progressive Jewish organizations with whom I have spoken are in strong disagreement with your action. It is simply wrong to assume that housing an event that discusses the BDS movement is anti-Semitic in content or implication. There are increasing numbers of Jewish intellectuals and cultural workers (including Adrienne Rich and myself) who support the BDS movement, including a vocal group from Israel that calls upon the rest of us to put international pressure on their country (including Anat Matar, Rachel Giora, Dalit Baum - one of the founding queer activists there, and Neve Gordon). There are also queer anarchist and human rights groups in Israel- including "Who Profits?" - who support BDS and who are struggling against illegal land confiscations in Jerusalem and the building of the wall or who, at least, would support an open forum to discuss the pros and cons of this strategy, non-violent, to compel the State of Israel. But there is, perhaps most importantly as well a network of Palestinian Queers for BDS that have an important and complex analysis of the situation, calling for BDS as a sustained non-violent practice to oppose the systematic disenfranchisement of Palestinians under the Occupation. It is surely part of our global responsibility to understand this position and to make alliances across regional divisions rather than stay within the parochial assumptions of our own neighborhoods.
The idea that BDS is somehow anti-Semitic misunderstands the point and is simply false. It is a movement that is in favor of putting pressure on states that fail to comply with international law and, in this case, that keep more than 1.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank under the military control of Israel, which also maintains political control over their survival, mobility, employment, health, and elections - and this has been amply demonstrated. This is a human rights and social justice issue about which we all have to learn. And it seems to me that just as the very notion of freedom must include sexual freedom, and the very notion of equality must include sexual and gender equality, so must we form alliances that show that our concern with social justice is one that will include opposition to all forms of state subjugation and disenfranchisement. We now have many organizations that affirm the interlinking networks of subjugation and alliance: queers against racism, queers for economic justice. We must oppose all forms of anti-Semitism to be sure (as a Jewish queer who lost part of maternal line in the Nazi genocide against the Jews, I can and will take no other stand). But we must extend our critique of racism to all minorities whose citizenship is unfulfilled, suspended, lost, or compromised, which would include the Palestinian people in the last several decades.
The Siegebuster event is one that would simply seek to inform the LGBTQ community of a set of political viewpoints. No one who goes to the event has to agree with the viewpoint put forward there, and neither does the center. By hosting this event, your center would simply be acknowledging that this is an important global issue in which LGBTQ people are invested and are now currently debating. The Center thus would agree that we all need to hear this viewpoint in order to make more informed decisions about the situation. I fear that to refuse to host the event is to submit to the tactics of intimidation and ignorance and to give up on the important public function of this center. I urge you to reconsider your view. These are important matters, they concern us all, and we look to you now to show that the LGBTQ movement remains committed to discussing social justice issues and will not be intimidated by those who seek to expand the powers of censorship precisely when so much of the rest of the world is trying to bring them down. There is still time for you to act with courage and wisdom.
Sincerely,
Judith Butler
University of California, Berkeley
Visiting Professor, New School for Social Research (Spring, 2011)
it appears the New York LGBT Community Center can be bought.
It is very sad to see the LGBT movement , which itself has stood up for the rights of the unfairly persecuted and killed, being aligned with Zionism, the persecution and killing machine.
Bla, bla, bla. Just organize and give more money than the Zionist donors or shut up. Put your money where your mouth is. That is what these donors are doing. Why should the Center’s many activities suffer for one controversial party? Money talks, bullshit walks.
Money talks
instead of morals. sad.
What did you expect from eee? He’s Israeli. That’s all he knows about morality.
What did you expect from eee?
i can’t help it, i’m continually surprised at the blatant obviousness of the crap they come up with.
Just organize and give more money than the Zionist donors or shut up
more than anything else it’s these kinds of dictates that reveals and perpetuates a certain mindframe. but point it out from the other side and be ready to get blasted for the antisemitic trope of “JOOS and their money!!!!!!”
seriously how is one to digest this mentality? is it a race to the top of a heap that’s bought and paid for? is that all that matters? can anyone and anything be bought off? or do some people and organizations stand on principle?
eee’s posts are valuable. They should be collected in a book. I think a good title would be The Hollow Moral Center of the Israeli Mind
that’s not fair pots. how about The Hollow Moral Center of one Israeli Mind
I prefer The Hollow Moral Center at the heart of the Zionist philosophy of Jewish Racial Supremacy
admittedly a bit more of a mouthful, but highly accurate nonetheless, IMHO
“or do some people and organizations stand on principle?”
Do you live in the real world? Do you not understand that talk is cheap? The LGBT Center’s main goals are related to the welfare of the LGBT community. Should they sacrifice these goals for the welfare of the Palestinians? Just like you pick your fights, they pick theirs. Instead of respecting their decision, or helping them make a different decision by raising money, you choose to hypocritically criticize them.
eee, the disanalogy between the LGBT center and other cases of aid-giving/withholding is that a lot of the campaigning for LGBT rights proceeded on pure good will, altruism and morality. If the LGBT community had to wait for the monied classes to fund their struggle for rights, their campaign would still have been in its infancy today. So the unhappiness with the center is understandable, I think. Other disenfranchised people want the same consideration from the LGBT community as the LGBT community needed from others. It might not be a particularly practical “living in the real world” attitude, but it typically is idealism that steer campaigns for the oppressed against those that oppress them.
Nah. The point is that eee is so representative.
Leigh,
The Palestinians have not helped the LGBT struggle in any significant way. In fact all would agree that the Palestinian society is not friendly at all to this community. So both the practical and ideological reasons do not stand.
speaking of helping the community, can gays marry in israel? can they legally apply to be the significant other wrt end of life decisions? what kind of legal rights do gays have in israel as opposed to the US or palestine for that matter?
Annie,
This will answer all your questions:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Gays cannot marry in Israel but if they marry elsewhere the state recognizes their marriage.
why do you think they distinguish between men and women wrt adoption?
Actually, eee, I don’t think I fathomed just how bargain-basement that speech could be until I met you.
Annie,
Take your so called morals, become rich, and give the money to whomever you want. Many Zionists are not Jews.
So people believe that calling Israel an apartheid state is not moral and in fact is pure racism. They think you are immoral. Who are you to dictate your morals to other people? Who are you to tell other people where to donate? Who are you to tell organizations not to take money without aiding them in finding a replacement donation?
Those same people, apparently, spit in the faces of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.
I must have missed the link between certain zionists being not jewish and certain [other?] people thinking the UN definition of the crime of apartheid can be ignored when assessing Israel.
As always I remain alarmed at the short-sightedness of Israelis in ignoring the dangerous intentions of christian zionist leaders like John Hagee, who said the Shoah was part of God’s great plan for the jews (and I thought it was the nazis):
Hagee – ‘Hitler Was Fulfilling God’s Will For Israel’
he is heavily underestimating the voice of Judith Butler in LGBT circles,
So I suppose the LGBT center should drop groups endorsing controversial gay marriage advocacy? Or hell, even anti-discrimination laws against homosexuals. That’s still pretty controversial in the US, overall.
You’re right, eee. The LGBT center should just do whatever the porn magnate tells them to. He’s got the money, and that’s all that matters in your world, right?
Gay rights activists want the support of the rest of the world because their cause is right. Or so I used to think. Now I see that right matters less to some of them than cash. Something to remember the next time.
Meh. Homosexuals are perfectly human, with perfectly human failings too. We don’t pretend to be any sort of “Chosen Ones.”
There are other queer activist groups that exist specifically to support Palestine, Potsherd, such as QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism), so when you say “something to remember the next time” which one are you going to remember more?
As Chaos writes, LGBT people are only human, and just as fallible as any heterosexual. I’d appreciate it if you don’t judge us all b/c some NY centre caved in to financial blackmail by a gay zionist robot.
[This is purely anecdotal but] among my friends it is the queers that have a fuller understanding of the situation in Palestine and I do think that is related to us being more politically active in general, on account of the recent and ongoing battles against what you could describe as heterosexual apartheid.
Anyway, it gives me a particular satisfaction to to see zionists frothing at the mouth that queers don’t buy this “arabs hate fags” crap that Israel pushes, and have no qualms about supporting the push for Palestinian human rights. The general conditions for LGBT people in the ME isn’t much different than it was in the west just 40 years ago.
But guys, as much as I agree that eee’s attitude of “money not morality” is awful, the progressive community needs a response to this kind of situation. Just telling a center that is already a charritable organisation to p*ss off some rich people and lose sh*t loads of money won’t win us this thing. In addition, it’s a form of victimising an organisation that is the victim of the bullying tactics of others. Can we think of anything constructive?
At last, someone with a mature and practical attitude.
What you can do is start charity of your own that is prepared to step in when situations like these arise.
My attitude by the way is not “money not morality”. It is “back your view of morality with money because morals alone won’t keep any charity functioning”. It is legitimate to debate whether Israel is an apartheid state. It is not legitimate to chastise a charity for not agreeing with you or for not being willing to stake their survival on such a controversial issue.
Ah, but it’s not that simple, see. Some groups are being systematically disadvantaged because it benefits the super-rich. The poor are getting poorer because the rich are getting richer. So telling poor people to finance their own charities to try to compete with the rich is hopelessly naive. The problem is precisely that they do not have any money. They need compassion and altruism. Similarly, since corporates back the Israeli occupation, money for the Palestinian cause is thin on the ground. That’s why I’m calling your attitude “money before morality”. If it cannot be financially backed, it shouldn’t be fought for.
Leigh,
It is quite simple. There are many more rich non-Zionists in the world than Zionists. Raise money from them instead of finding excuses.
Corporates in the Arab or Muslim world for sure do not back Israeli occupation. Many corporates in Scandinavia or in general in Europe do not back Israeli occupation. Go raise money from them.
if they need compassion and altruism they’re compelled to seek middle ground. they can have no expectation that people who oppose the actions that they advocate should contribute toward providing facilities for their activities.
money for the Palestinian cause should surely not be thin on the ground. there’s plenty of money held to people who claim to be staunch allies of the Pals and there’s plenty of money that neighboring states that say that they support the Pals make from the descendants of Palestinians living in their countries and systematically fleeced by those countries (e.g. Lebanon)
You know what happens to Americans who donate to Palestinian charity?
link to democracynow.org
So if you and eee’s argument is predicated on cash flow equals free speech, fuster, than the US government itself is violating free speech by arresting and imprisoning those who run charities.
Leigh, I get what you’re saying but think about the origin of LGBT groups: to fight against ‘the system’ for people’s rights. This will not be the first time the NY LGBT Community Centre will have had a fight on it’s hands. If they’re now too fat, cashed up and complacent that they’re willing to overlook the oppression of others, maybe they don’t deserve to be supported. Maybe a debate needs to be held in the New York LGBT community about the values of the Community Centre and whether caving into funding pressure was/is a wise decision.
RE: “I am writing to communicate my outrage and sorrow that our movement has come to this point where it refuses to house an organization that is fighting for social justice.” – Judith Butler
MY COMMENT: I draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed: “Save New York’s LGBT Center! Don’t Let Wealthy Bigots Shut Down Free Speech ”
TO READ/SIGN THE PETITION – link to ipetitions.com
The “wealthy bigot” is in fact exercising his right to free speech. You should exercise yours also and donate to the Center.
You think “free speech” is about community organizations by investing huge amounts of cash in them, and then exercising that as blackmail when they try to be inclusive?
Free speech doesn’t give anyone the right to slander others. The organization in question is not anti-Semitic.
Bigots are always in favor of their own freedom. They’re bigots because they don’t suppose freedom for others.
slightly o/t, but ms. butler has an interesting piece in the LRB regarding the ownership of kafka’s papers, and more broadly, ‘jewish heritage’, whatever that may be. it’s accessible to non-subscribers as well. presumably eee wouldn’t have any problem with the american nazi party buying kafka’s works, if it was the highest bidder.
link to lrb.co.uk
Chaos, I’m an American who’s donated to Palestinian and other charities for the benefit of other people believing in Islam. So far they haven’t arrested me for it.
Sometimes a tree really isn’t a forest.
fusty, they really have arrested other people for doing essentially the same thing. And sent them to prison for long terms. Do you deny this?
Do you mean the five convicted in the Holy Land Foundation case, Pots?
that was a witch hunt
Among others. That wasn’t an isolated case.
really. which palestinian charities have you donated to?
for starters, the one they shut down.
…which means your money was likely confiscated by the federal government and, instead of going to charity for Palestinians, was dumped into the same pot that goes largely into bombing Afghani villages, paying Blackwater and their ilk in Iraq and propping up Gitmo and other elements of the US torture camp system.
And that’s your idea of your money going into your free speech, huh?
oh yada yada
May I encourage everyone to read Judith Butler’s lead essay, “Who Owns Kafka?” in the current issue of the London Review of Books, which deals with the claim of the National Library of Israel that it is the rightful owner of the literary output of dead Jews, in the current issue of the London Review of Books.
Her essay is available free online at:
link to lrb.co.uk
Thanks for the link, Les. Zionism wants everything to do with Jewish history. They took a work of Bruno Schulz (killed by a Nazi in ww2) out of the Ukraine because they said it belonged to Israel.
I wonder if the National Library will claim ownership of the priceless Judaica which was water damaged at Iraq’s National Library in Baghdad, works which were turned over to the US to be restored.