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 West Bank, constructed by the Israeli state and enforced by the Israeli army; these roads ease Israeli travel to and from illegal settlements in the West Bank and severely impede Palestinian travel between villages, to agricultural land, and throughout a territory which is and has been their homeland;
-a system of permits (identification cards) that limits the travel of Palestinian people and functionally imprisons them, separating them from family, health care, jobs and other necessities;
-militarized checkpoints with barbed wire and soldiers armed with automatic rifles and the humiliation and harassment the Palestinian people experience daily in order to travel from one place to another;
-the reconfiguration of maps to render invisible Palestinian villages/homelands;
-harmful living conditions created and enforced by Israeli law and policy such as limited access to water and electricity in many Palestinian homes;
-violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, and the ongoing growth of illegal settlements facilitated by the Israeli military;
-homelessness as a result of the razing of Palestinian homes by the Israeli state;
-home invasions, tear gas attacks, “skunk water” attacks, and the arrest of Palestinian children by the Israeli military as part of ongoing harassment designed to force Palestinian villagers to give up their land.
Their call is rooted in a queer perspective that specifically sees the queer Palestinian struggle for liberation from “global heterosexism” as one and the same as the struggle for liberation of the Palestinian people from what they call colonization and apartheid. They emphasize the emerging Palestinian gay-rights movements, such as Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for BDS, and criticize what has become known as Israel’s “pinkwashing” campaign, whereby the state’s PR mechanisms use the country’s liberal record on gay rights as a way to conceal its human rights abuses. Indeed, some see Tel Aviv’s recent declaration as the world’s best gay travel destination as cynical and injudicious in light of the ongoing occupation.
But they do not exclude Israelis (or heterosexuals) from their show of solidarity and call for action:
We stand in solidarity with queer Palestinian activists who are working to end the occupation, and also with Israeli activists, both queer and others, who are resisting the occupation that is being maintained and extended in their name.
As Americans, they hold the US responsible for its participation in ongoing violation of Palestinian human rights, and make an explicit call for an end of US aid to Israel.
We name the complicity of the United States in this human rights catastrophe and call on our government to end its participation in an unjust regime that places it and us on the wrong side of peace and justice;
We call upon all of our academic and activist colleagues in the US and elsewhere to join us by supporting all Palestinian efforts that center these three demands [1. End of occupation and dismantling of wall 2. Right of return for displaced Palestinians 3. Recognition and restoration of the equal rights of citizenship for Israeli citizens of Palestinian descent] and by working to end US financial support, at $8.2 million daily, for the Israeli state and its occupation.
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rakiba
Great, as long as they are consistent across the globe, which some leftist activists are not.
Ben
Almost every right LGBTers in Israel have is due to Supreme Court decisions, not because the Knesset was passing laws. Why is the Israeli government, who still fights in court against LGBT equality, suddenly so eager to appear gay-friendly? I think that’s the more interesting question…
Benjamin Doherty
FYI, the “Q” in LGBTIQ in this context refers to “queer.”
Benjamin Doherty
Sorry for my pedantic and twirpy comment… queer acronyms! Honestly, who knows?!
David
I’m also disturbed by the Pinkwashing in the United Kingdom.
Did you know that the United Kingdom also has introduced liberal civil partnership and anti-discrimination laws. Tellingly, this happened AT PRECISELY THE SAME TIME that the UK was invading (and destroying) Yugloslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, AND the ongoing occupation of Ireland and the Falklands.
Alternatively, this whole Pinkwashing business is the product of people who are a bit obsessed with Israel and Jews.
Carl
Benjamin, appreciated. The ‘Q for questioning’ had foxed me.
.
David, I was going to point out that the Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts didn’t happen anywhere near the same time, but then I saw you’d put ‘precisely’ in capitals and realised I must have it wrong.
Lee
What would we do without such conscientious LBGQT activists? Israel allows gays to live in peace and express their sexual orientation. It’s all a ruse, you see. Meanwhile, the Palestinians who persecute gays, even kill them are just helping the LBGQT movement by killing gays. It all makes perfect sense. Ah, yes, and these geniuses went on an ISM tour because there are no Jew ony roads, and the Palestinians have different license plates because they demanded them. Such a mixed up bunch of sexually disoriented people you’d never find anywhere but in the cushy and free societies of America and Israel.
Steve
Wait, so Palestinians elect Hamas who absolutely hate gay people, but these groups don’t want to boycott Palestinians?
Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Syria, etc. all kill or discriminate against gay people, but these groups are not boycotting those countries?
Israel is NICER to gay people that any country in that entire region, yet this group DOES want to boycott Israel?!? All because Israel wants to separate itself from… the type of people who vote for Hamas and want to kill gay people?!?
Jazzy
desperate for relevancy, oblivious to reality, irrelevant to posterity – would be better for these style mavens (sorry, intellectuals) to go buy some new frames or a turtleneck or something, instead of making a mockery of the gay rights movement…
LieBGTQ
LGBTQ has only recently, in the past decade, taken a look beyond its nose, beyond a very limited zone of sexuality and gender theory and politics (to post-colonial / disability studies / BDS). This may be good for LGBTQ and the world, but it may also be a fashion statement for a narcissistic political culture without any meat on its bones. LGBTQ has, in my opinion, been unable to develop a wider critique of culture beyond its shibboleths like homophobia, the hetero-homo binary. LGBTQ can’t be entirely to blame, since nearly everyone dropped Marxism by the late 80′s –even the Analytic Marxists. But the lack of a wider framework, the dominance of pride as the central organizing principle of LGBTQ, has reduced the movement to a choir for the liberal capitalist framework. LGBTQ knows how to play the liberal capitalist game, and isn’t really interested in rocking the boat at home, even when it denies this. So it finds its issues elsewhere, in Israel when convenient, in Muslim countries when convenient. And it does so because LGBTQ is really a form of liberal fundamentalism, a culture without any structure besides the liberal framework, which it wishes to impress upon the globe, a colonial aspiration. (Yes, and I mean even the hip queer facade.)
That being said, I support the BDS movement.
Rob
STEVE :
“Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Syria, etc. all kill or discriminate against gay people, but these groups are not boycotting those countries?”
…
Hi Steve. You are currently on stage 2 of the “How to make the case for Israel and win” scale, enjoy your stay! :
1) We rock
2) They suck
3) You suck
4) Everything sucks
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-make-case-for-israel-and-win.html
Steve
Rob: Israel is the nicest country to gay people in that entire region, yet the only country in that region that is being targeted by this group.
Explain the logic there. Thanks.
Steve
ROB: You are currently on stage 1 of the latest craze: Single Israel out for things that Israel isn’t even doing wrong, while ignoring the places that ARE doing that thing wrong.
Seth Morrison
As a Jewish gay man I am proud that Israel offers significant rights to LGBTQ people while I am equally vocal in my condemnation of how Israel treats Arab Israelis and of the occupation.
That said, I do not support BDS because I believe that it will be counter-productive to the goals of ending the occupation, re-building Palestine and providing full equality to Arab Israelis. I think that we can be more effective working with Israelis and Palestinians, bringing them together to work for peace.
Philos
@ David, I hate to mess up your historical chronology but “Yugoslavia” was in political self-destruct mode from the mid-80s and actually began destroying itself from the late 1980s. I presume you would have preferred to see Serbia obliterate “the Muslim invaders” (a.k.a. Bosnians), annex Croatia and send the “Turks” (a.k.a. Kosovars) back to where they came from?
.
I’m sorry but whenever fascist, racist and genocidal regimes rear their heads they must be smote down. Unfortunately that task is left to the less than perfect West but better that then to let genocides be perpetrated un-challenged. Or do you think that non-intervention in Rwanda, Congo and Darfur are the right way to go?
.
Yes Iraq was an illegal war but don’t conflate issues. It’s too easy to be a total pacificst without engaging in the historical facts. The fact remains that genocides are only stopped when some vital Western interest is at stake and that is a shame on us all.
.
As some wise person once said, “You’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omlette.”
zayzafouna
Mairav
will you endorse BDS too
Greg Pollock
As we all know, Mairav, being and Israeli in Israel, cannot endorse BDS without the possibility of some esoteric law suit against her and maybe +972. I believe +972 has been very explicit in saying that their general silence on the matter constitutes self censorship for fear of economic reprisal. I’m happy to remind us all of that.
.
I see no reason to abhore everything Israeli. In fact, my compulsion to cite the Declaration of Independece as often as possible (as now) means I cannot so abhore. So go enjoy Tel Aviv oh gays! Or, actually, some gays. Maybe some of these some will ask locals uncomfortable questions while enjoying their freedom to be what they are. Israeli justice has done pretty well with homosexuality, in my limited knowledge. Good for that. Something to remember in this begun dark time of Israeli law.
zayzafouna
Mairav is also an American citizen and is thus protected by the 1st Amendment, and is thus protected, especially if she leaves ziostan like Lisa Goldmann
Greg Pollock
You can love a land yet hate what the State is becoming. I see no difference between “ziostan” and corporate Israeli ideology. Becoming the mirror of one’s opponent is not going to make this conflict go away. Let’s find another way to feel better.