ABSTRACT
Few contemporary literary critics have placed so much emphasis on the power of language as Judith Butler, professor of rhetoric and literature at the University of California at Berkeley. In trying to confute Lawrence H. Summers' distinction between intentional and effective antisemitism, Butler calls it wildly improbable that somebody examining the disinvestment petitions signed by herself and her co-conspirators might take them, as condoning antisemitism. But Summers was perfectly correct in stating that one need not "hate Jews" in order to perform actions or utter words that are "antisemitic in their effect if not their intent". As for the argument that nothing is antisemitic which does not explicitly target every single Jew in the world, it is jejune. Adolf Hitler's professors were the first to make antisemitism both academically respectable and complicit in murder. They have now been succeeded by Arafat's professors: not only the boycotters, not only the advocates of suicide bombings, but also the fellow-travellers like Martin Jay.
