Judith Butler: Palestinians Are Not Being “Regarded as People” by Israel and US

What’s happening in Gaza is genocide. The bodies keep falling, piling up. This is happening under our collective watch, our moment in history.

Israeli forces have now killed more than 8,300 people in Gaza, including at least 3,400 Palestinian children, and tens of thousands more face an acute risk of death as the Israeli military continues to prevent people in Gaza from accessing adequate food, clean water and functional medical care. The U.S. State Department has reportedly estimated that 30,000 babies under 6 months of age with barely formed immune systems are currently drinking contaminated water in Gaza. I dread to imagine the colossal ways in which illness and starvation wrought by conditions like these may soon push the death toll exponentially higher, even as Israel continues expanding its ground attacks under the cover of the ongoing communications blackout caused when Israeli forces severed Gaza’s phone and internet systems.

Judith Butler's Remarks to Brooklyn College on BDS

Usually one starts by saying that one is glad to be here, but I cannot say that it has been a pleasure anticipating this event. What a Megillah! I am, of course, glad that the event was not cancelled, and I understand that it took a great deal of courage and a steadfast embrace of principle for this event to happen at all. I would like personally to thank all those who took this opportunity to reaffirm the fundamental principles of academic freedom, including the following organizations: the Modern Language Association, the National Lawyers Guild, the New York ACLU, the American Association of University Professors, the Professional Staff Congress (the union for faculty and staff in the CUNY system), the New York Times editorial team, the offices of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Brooklyn College President Karen Gould whose principled stand on academic freedom has been exemplary.