You Only Trust Those Who Are Absolutely

If You Speak [ About Violence Against Israelis], You Are In An Unspeakable Place, Have Become A Nazi Or Its Moral Equivalent (if There Is A Moral Equivalent). It Certainly Terrifies, But Perhaps Also It Is A Linguistic Permutation Of State Terrorism, An Assault That Stops One In One's Tracks, And Secures The Continuing Operation Of The Regime And Its Monopoly On Politically Intelligible Speech.

Indeed, It Would Be Great If We Could All Be Liberated Through Reason, But I Think It Only Gets Us Part Of The Way. After All, Someone May Have A Very Logical View, But For Other Reasons We May Still Fail To Hear What That Person Says, Or We May Turn Their Words Around So That They Are Understood To Say The Opposite. The Task Is Really To Find Ways Of Addressing Deep-seated Forms Of Fear And Aggression That Make It Possible To Hold To Manifestly Inconsistent Views Without Quite Acknowledging Them.

I Think There Is No One Answer. It Is Still A Struggle, There Are Tensions And I'm Sure There Are Many People Who Would Like To See These Questions Laid To Rest Or Cease To Be Posed Altogether.

We Have To Be Able Track The Ways In Which Fear, For Instance, Is Monopolized By State And Media Institutions, Ways In Which Fear Is Actually Promoted And Distributed As A Way Of Bolstering The Need For Greater Security And Militarization.

Maybe We Need To Start With The Rethinking Of What Is "west" And What Is "non-west." It Seems To Me That There Are Any Number Of Populations Who Already Cross That Divide, And We Could Probably Point To Several Existing States That Belong Exclusively Neither To One Category Nor To The Other. Do We Use These Terms To Designate Geographical Realities, Geopolitical Ones, Or Perhaps Sites Of Power, Exploitation, Orientalism That Move Through Space And Time In Ways That Have To Be Tracked Historically.