Open Letter to Judith Butler
(Video: Hadar Galron)
Dear Judith Butler - Jewish, liberal, progressive, academic professor of philosophy and author of numerous books. Your support of Hamas isn't new. Since 2006, if not before, you've been saying that Hamas and Hezbollah are not terror organizations but social movements, "freedom fighters", RESISTANCE, who are actually "extreme global left."
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As a writer and academic, your words influence many Western scholars and intellectuals, who trust you and rely on your integrity. You should feel responsible enough, especially when Israel is at its most vulnerable moment since the holocaust… to check and recheck your facts - but you’re going to an even further extreme and preaching that Israel's 75 years of existence are 75 years too many!
Where do you get your history from? It wasn't Israel who attacked the Arabs in 1948! Right after the attempted genocide of the Nazis, this land, between the river and the sea, which until then was inhabited by both Jews and Arabs for generations, was split into two states for two nations…! It was the Arabs, who thought it would be simple to “finish off what Hitler started” and declare war on Israel. No less than six Arab States against one small Israel - unfortunately for them, Israel won that war.
"Unfortunately" also for Jews living in Muslim countries. Rioters began bloody pogroms in Aden and Yemen, Lybia… citizenships were confiscated from Jews in numerous countries… over 900,000 Jews were forced to flee or were expelled from Muslim-majority countries throughout Africa and Asia. They left their homes empty-handed, as did the holocaust survivors – robbed of their land, their money, their possessions and way too many of their loved ones.
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Most demonstrators can't point to Israel or Gaza on a map
(Photo: Amr Alfiky, Reuters)
Since then, some Islamic countries have come to recognize Israel as a State - Radical Islam has not. Radical Islam clearly and blatantly states its mission is to destroy Israel and wipe out the entire Jewish Nation. Rejection of a negotiated peace settlement:
"... There are no so-called peaceful solutions for the Palestinian problem - they are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Movement. There is no solution except by Jihad. (oriental word for genocide) Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time." (Article 13 in Hamas’ covenant)
Have you bothered to read this peace-loving left-wing charter? They blatantly declare genocide, they act towards it and yet YOU choose to blame Israel for genocide… How is this your conclusion?
How does a person like yourself, who teaches freedom of thought and complex morality, blame Israel for genocide? Israel! A Jewish country where all religions, including Muslims, are permitted to pray, study and work in any profession. They can be doctors, politicians, Knesset members in the Israeli government… Is this what genocide and apartheid look like?!
Ironically, although you’ve managed to convince many Westerners, most of whom can't even point to Israel or Gaza on the map, you cannot convince those who know Hamas, and understand the complexity of the Middle East; Arab countries, senior Arab officials, public Arabic figures, and prominent Arab journalists from many Arab countries: They've known for years who the real oppressors of Palestinians are:
● “Hamas has been a murderous terrorist movement for decades, directing its terrorism against the Palestinians… long before carrying out terror operations under the pretext of ‘liberating Palestine’...” said Saudi TV journalist Abdullah bin Bijad, in 2021
● "Hamas are extremists and terrorists,” says Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs in 2018.
● In Jordan, former minister of information, Saleh al-Qallab wrote in 2021: "…Hamas has greatly harmed the Palestinian cause…. It is in no way correct to call Hamas a national liberation movement. If Hamas is really a liberation movement, why does it follow the orders of the Muslim Brotherhood?”
● In Egypt: TV host Mazher Shahin, said in 2014, "We are ready to die today in defense of the Palestinian cause—but we are not ready to die in defense of Hamas… We are not prepared to sacrifice even a single hair of an eyebrow of any Egyptian soldier for the sake of Hamas and all the people who wage Jihad.”
● An Egyptian security official, in an interview with Reuters back in 2014 said: "We know Hamas is the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood are terrorists and no country can develop with terrorists in or around it.”
● In Bahrain, Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, minister of foreign affairs said in 2019, “Without Iranian support for Hamas and the Jihadists who control Gaza — we would be much closer to achieving a better peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis."
● In Kuwait, Fouad al-Hashem, a TV columnist said in 2014 “[Hamas] uses Palestinian blood as fuel for their war, in order to reach power.”
There are many many more…
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U.S. Vice President Kamal Harris meets with family members of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza
(Photo: X)
And all those Arab countries condemned the massacre of Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7. As did most of the 2 million Muslim and Christian Arabs living in Israel.
But You – Ms. Judith Butler, cannot even bring yourself to condemn the most brutal crimes against humanity since medieval times that were witnessed on that day… You, as a woman, a so-called feminist, have not condemned the systematic rape of dozens of women and girls, have not condemned the shooting in the eyes of women, the insertion of sharp objects into the vaginas of young mothers, women and girls, tearing out their sex organs, under the pretext of "preventing reproduction"! As far as I know, dead women cannot give birth, but killing them wasn’t enough - these rapists and pedophiles needed an excuse to torture them to death!
The twisted agony froze on the faces of those women, the distortion of pain was visible on the corpses' faces, days after their tragic deaths.
And all you can say is that this was done "under certain circumstances"? Do you even know the meaning of the word genocide? Or are you trying to create a new meaning for the word?
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This captured Hamas terrorist admits he was ordered to kill women and children
(Photo: Screenshot)
Because in Gaza there were 350,000 Palestinians in 1967 – in 2023 there were 2.2 Million – what happened to the 75 years of genocide?!
Another fact that seems to slip your mind is that Israel hasn’t occupied Gaza since 2005 - Hamas occupies Gaza. Surprisingly, for this "extreme left freedom fighting" organization, there have been no elections since 2005… because anyone who dares oppose them, finds themselves thrown off a rooftop – literally!
All the money and resources that were sent to Gaza for education, schools and parks - the "left-wing” Hamas used for tunnels, rockets, guns and other ammunition. In their summer camps, they teach children from the age of 6 that their only mission in life is to die killing a Jew.
Judith Butler, you completely and utterly fail to practice what you preach in regards to women’s rights and human rights… yet seem to be in love with your theory of terrorists being left-wing social movements… does this make you feel more "liberal" and "free-thinking"? Is it some kind of Academic hubris that blinds you? Or maybe from up there in your academic ivory tower, you can no longer decipher between darkness and light, democracy and terrorism or right from left.
Don’t you see you're playing right into the hands of terrorists? That you've made yourself the useful idiot of antisemites, who are using your name to "Jew-wash" their genocidal hatreds?
If you really care about the Palestinians, help to rid them of the terror organizations that are ruling them. But I’m not sure you do care… it smells of pure antisemitism? Old blood libels- with a new story...
Hadar GalronPhoto: Roni TernovskiSo what if you’re Jewish? Being Jewish grants no immunity from being antisemitic.
Are you aware that since your outspoken and one-dimensional analysis of the war, Jewish students at your University – Berkley – are not safe… the university doesn't know "how to protect the Jewish students from violent mobs" that you call "left-wing freedom fighters."
Theories, Judith, become words, and words become actions, and actions can be fatal. If any Jewish student is harmed or, God forbid, killed, then their blood is on your hands.
- Hadar Galron is an award-winning international screenwriter, playwright, actress, comedienne, stage director and songwriter. Hadar writes and performs in English and Hebrew, and is also a professional lecturer and compere, translator and teacher of dramatic writing at Bar-Ilan University and Seminar Hakibutzim College.