WASHINGTON - Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren delivered a keynote speech at the 20th Annual Equality Forum held over the weekend in the U.S. city of Philadelphia, but his selection as the featured guest angered some pro-Palestinian activists in the LGBT community. The forum is intended to celebrate the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Transgender, Queers and other individuals, often referred to as LGBT.  This year, the Forum's executive committee chose to honor Israel, with its culture capital Tel Aviv recently listed as the number one gay destination in the world.  The committee invited Israel's Ambassador to Washington to address…

A group of American academics and artists who identify as part of the LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer) community recently released an open letter and petition endorsing the Palestinian call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel. The group, which included filmmaker Barbara Hammer, famous for her avantgarde lesbian feminist cinema, was just on a trip to Israel and Palestine earlier this month. In their letter, they list the human rights violations they witnessed: -a segregated road system (one set of roads for cars with Israeli plates, and another much inferior one for cars with Palestinian plates) throughout the…