"[25] Marelli argues that revolutionary love "is not the demand for love, nor is it 'Christian love', nor loving one's neighbor nor one's enemy. She serves as spokesperson for the Parti des Indigènes de la République (Party of the Indigenous of the Republic). "[3] Segré criticises Bouteldja's lack of interest in developments in Middle Eastern and North African politics that do not relate to Israel, from the Iran–Iraq War to the Syrian Civil War, and asks "In the heart of the whole world's 'natives' ... does the Israel question possess this extraordinary importance – or just in the heart of the author? There is only one way: revolutionary love.—from Whites, Jews, and Us. [6], The anthropologist Paul Silverstein has argued that Bouteldja's argument, boils down to a simple proposition, an offer which whites (les Blancs) cannot refuse if they wish to retain some level of bourgeois privilege and stave off the inevitable decolonial revolution: You give us love, we'll give you peace. Ariane Pérez criticised Bouteldja's approach to issues of family, virility, race and religion, which she compared to those of the anti-Semitic journalist and writer Édouard Drumont. Because I share Gramsci's anxiety: “The old are dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” The fascist monster, born in the entrails of Western modernity. A sometimes thrilling polemic, Whites, Jews, and Us offers an unabashed call for a revolution against the indelible racism at the heart of white rule; a call for an insurrection in which she offers “revolutionary love” as compensation for the dismantling of white privilege. Drawing upon such prominent voices as James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Jean Genet, she issues a polemical call for a militant anti-racism grounded in the concept of revolutionary love. [27] "Instead of surrendering Judaism to Holocaust covetousness, Zionism, and [Anti-Defamation League]-style paranoia," Dubler suggests, "if Bouteldja truly wants Jews to go in for revolutionary love, she would be better served by signal boosting the righteous and crazy alternative."[27]. ", refers to a slogan used by French nationalists during the Algerian War. MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide. [3] Roland Simon accused Bouteldja of "tactical homophobia, latent antisemitism, sympathizing with pro-Saddam [Hussein] elements during the Gulf War, scrapping women's struggles ('for the moment'), etc. Bouteldja performs a remarkable gesture.... Bouteldja speaks to us like one of those books we need, one of these books that wake us up with a blow to the head. With Whites, Jews, and Us, Houria Bouteldja launches a scathing critique of the European Left from an indigenous anti-colonial perspective, reflecting on Frantz Fanon's political legacy, the republican pact, the Shoah, the creation of Israel, feminism, and the fate of postcolonial immigration in the West in the age of rising anti-immigrant populism. [10] An open letter signed by Ilan Pappé, Adi Ophir, Sylvère Lotringer, Ronit Lentin, Sarah Schulman, Ariella Azoulay and 14 others described Guénolé's accusations as "outrageous" and argued that he failed to understand either racism or anti-Semitism or to acknowledge Bouteldja's conception of "revolutionary love". [4] The first chapter deals with Israel by considering Jean-Paul Sartre's views on Israel and Palestinian self-determination, and the role of Israel in debates on the French left. In 2018 The Immanent Frame published a forum on Whites, Jews, and Us. [3], Thomas Guénolé, a member of the left-wing party La France Insoumise, accused Bouteldja of racism and anti-Semitism. [8], Bouteldja is critical of both white feminism and a variant of indigenous feminism that fails to trace the connections between masculine violence and western patriarchy. It is a love of political transformation. At this transitional moment in the history of the West—which is to say, at the moment of its decline—Bouteldja offers a call for political unity that demands the recognition that whiteness is not a genetic question: it is a matter of power, and it is high time to dismantle it. Such love will not come without significant discomfort for whites, and without necessary provocation. Bouteldja challenges widespread assumptions among the Left in the United States and Europe—that anti-Semitism plays any role in Arab–Israeli conflicts, for example, or that philo-Semitism doesn't in itself embody an oppressive position; that feminism or postcolonialist theory is free of colonialism; that integrationalism is a solution rather than a problem; that humanism can be against racism when its very function is to support the political-ideological apparatus that Bouteldja names the “white immune system.”. [4] The final three chapters address women and people of colour in Europe and argue that solidarity between people of various genders, races, religions and sexualities is necessary to overcome white supremacy and patriarchy. MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. "[27] Dubler proclaims his allegiance to Bouteldja's "we", but questions her two "yous" ("whites" and "Jews"), who, he argues, are both included via a demand for solidarity, and excluded. [3] The second and third chapters then discuss Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in Europe with reference to the intersection of race and religion. [9], Whites, Jews, and Us was denounced by French critics as anti-Semitic, misogynistic and homophobic. [22] Morsi suggests that readers "get caught in the rhythm of her writing even if we are not always certain of what she means. Hence my question: what can we offer white people in exchange for their decline and for the wars that will ensue? In a letter signed by Christine Delphy, Annie Ernaux, Catherine Samary, Isabelle Stengers and 16 others, published in Le Monde in June 2017, the authors accused Bouteldja's critics of character assassination and of having failed to read Whites, Jews, and Us beyond the title "or at most a few misrepresented citations.