Reading Group on Palestine and Philosophy
Reading Group as part of the Praxis-CFUL activities
Where: Room C215 – DEA (FLUL – School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon)
When: Fridays, from 5-7pm (see program below)
Working language: English
Organizer: Kaan Gündeş (Praxis-CFUL)
Attendance is free and open to the public
In the face of the genocide in Gaza, which has been ongoing for over two years, European philosophy has experienced a complete ethical collapse. European philosophy, which had declared that poetry would no longer be possible, not after the Nama and Herero genocides in Namibia, but only after the Holocaust, has not yet reached such poignant conclusions following the events in Gaza. On the contrary, prominent figures in this philosophical community, from Habermas, a contemporary representative of the Frankfurt School of Criticism, to Benhabib, a leading Hegel interpreter, found themselves producing philosophical-ethical arguments in favor of the aggressor and the settler. How did European philosophy, which claimed the right to speak as a global authority on concepts such as reason, freedom, peace, law, equality, citizenship, cosmopolitanism, justice, and so on, suddenly witness its alleged loyalty to these concepts collapse in the face of the reality of Gaza? However, this collapse is not an event that has occurred since October 7, 2023; on the contrary, it is a continuum with a comprehensive historical-philosophical background that this reading group will try to engage with. We will first examine how the “Jewish Question” was addressed by the Young Hegelians and Marx before the rise of the settler state, and then read the materialist analyses of this specific question offered by Lenin and Abram Leon. Throughout the sessions, we will examine the conservative and Euro-centered philosophical responses that were given by Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, Judith Butler, Leo Strauss, Jürgen Habermas, and Seyla Benhabib to Zionism, and attempt to develop a critical perspective on it. Simultaneously, drawing on the documents of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, we will discuss the possibilities of an anti-colonial revolutionary philosophy that can offer support and solidarity to the Palestinian struggle, its land, and its people. We will focus the last of our reading sessions on the academic boycott of Apartheid and the current state of Palestinian academia.
For receiving materials and for further information, contact Kaan Gündeş at kaan@edu.ulisboa.pt.
Program
Session 1 | 14 November 2025
Bauer, Bruno, The Jewish Question.
Marx, Karl, The Jewish Question.
Lenin, I., On the Jewish Question.
Session 2 | 21 November 2025
Leon, Abram, The Jewish Question (Chapter 1 and 7).
Trotsky, Leon, “What Next? Democracy and Fascism”; “German Bonapartism”; “What is National Socialism?”; “Hitler’s Program”; “Bonapartism and Fascism”.
Sayagh, Fayez A., Zionist Colonialism in Palestine (pp. 21-49).
Session 3 | 5 December 2025
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Anti-semite and Jew, (Preface, pp. V-XXVI, and Chapter 1, pp. 21-49).
Basic Political Documents of the Armed Palestinian Resistance Movement, “Historical Background” (pp. 11-35).
Session 4 | 19 December 2025
Levinas, Emmanuel, Difficult Freedom, (pp. 3-27, 46-50, 123-127, 175-178, 202-205, and 216-221).
Palestine Lives: Interviews with the Leaders of the Resistance, “George Habash” (pp. 69-83).
Al Fateh, “Why did Palestinians leave Palestine in 1948?”.
Session 5 |13 February 2026
Butler, Judith. Parting Ways (“Introduction”, p. 1-28 and “‘What Shall We Do Without Exile?’”, p. 205-225).
Lenin, I. “Report on the Commission on the National and the Colonial Questions at the 2nd Congress of the Communist International”.
Aoun, Belghith. “Gaza and the Western Criminality: A Deviation from Rationalism or a Deviation in Rationalism?”.
Session 6 | 20 February 2026
Habermas, Jürgen, “A Principle of Solidarity”.
Scholars-academics, “The principle of human dignity must apply to all people”.
Philosophers, “Philosophy for Palestine”.
Benhabib, Seyla, “An Open Letter to My Friends Who Signed ‘Philosophy for Palestine’”.
Dabashi, Hamid. “Thanks to Gaza, European philosophy has been exposed as ethically bankrupt”.
Saffari, Siavash; Shabani, Azadeh, “Palestine and the Colonial Unconscious of German Critical Theory”.
Ahmad, Aijaz, “Orientalism and After: Ambivalence and Cosmopolitan Location in the Work of Edward Said”.
Session 7 | 27 February 2026
Strauss, Leo, “Why We Remain Jews?” (pp. 317-321) and “Letter on Israel”.
Sayegh, Fayez A., “Do Jews Have a ‘Divine Right’ to Palestine?”.
Fifth of June Society, “The Palestinian Resistance Movement in Early 1969”.
Palestine Research Center, “Aim of the Palestinian Resistance Movement with Regard to the Jews”.
Session 8 | 6 March 2026
“FAQ: The Academic Boycott of Israeli Institutions”.
“Academic Boycott of Israel: An Introduction for Students”.
BRICUP, “Palestinian Universities Under Occupation”.
Al-Masri, Nazin, “Imagine you are a Palestinian academic or student”.
Hever, Shir. “Political Implications of Europe’s Arms Trade with Israel”.