Solidarity with Palestinians: Stop Pinkwashing Israel

MN Anti-War Committee * June 2018

“We believe that, as Queer communities, we must pay close attention to any grave human rights violations on our way to support the LGBTQ struggle, especially in a context where the country in question oppresses, discriminates, and implements an apartheid system. We should question the ethics and the values of Queer organizations or groups that voice fervent support for and participate in an apartheid state’s institutions. Human rights should not be compartmentalized, and the human rights of a certain group should not be more important than others’. We, as Palestinian queers, cannot ignore the struggle and the rights of the Palestinian people.  To us, the two struggles go side by side.” -Palestinian Queers for BDS

For 70 years, the Israeli occupation and apartheid system has denied the Palestinian people basic human rights. Palestinians in the West Bank live under brutal military occupation with illegal Israeli settlements, checkpoints, and a system of walls, barriers and roads accessible solely to Israeli settlers. Palestinians living inside Israel face discriminatory policies, including over 25 laws which target them as non-Jewish and reduce them to second class citizens. 1.9 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip live under siege in an open air prison described by international experts as “slow genocide.” Palestinians in the Diaspora are denied the UN-sanctioned right to return to their lands. Israeli oppression, racism, and discrimination do not distinguish between queer and straight Palestinians.

In response to international criticism, the Israeli government has a massive PR campaign which portrays Israel as gay-friendly and thus a progressive, inclusionary democracy. This aims to divert attention away from violations of Palestinian human rights, the occupation of Palestinian land, and the apartheid system. Known as pinkwashing, these advertising strategies include: promoting gay tourism to Israel, cultural and social promotion of Israel as the only country in the region with gay rights, and cultural activities that depict Israel as progressive on LGBT issues while disregarding conditions for Palestinians, including queer Palestinians.

Pinkwashing panders to anti-Arab, Islamophobic biases by painting Palestinian society as homophobic, while claiming that Israel, which doesn’t even have marriage equality,  is a gay haven in the Middle East. Israel claims to be the only place Palestinian queers feel safe, but the opposite is true.

While homophobia exists in every community and society, Israeli secret police fuel homophobia in Palestinian society when they coerce Palestinian gays to work as collaborators. This is part and parcel of Israel’s policy to maintain control over Palestinian territory. Israel hurts queer Palestinians, and makes it harder for them to organize for their own liberation.

Nada Elia explains in The Middle East Eye in April 2018, “All of Israel is not gay friendly, and even those few places that are, are “white- and Jewish-gay-friendly”. For Palestinians, Tel Aviv, which is more than 90 percent Jewish, is not so much a “gay haven” as a city built on the ruins of Yaffa, displacing indigenous people, men and women, gay and straight.  I am writing this as marches are taking place in Palestine. Israeli snipers with orders to shoot anyone who approaches the illegal “border” do not stop to inquire about their target’s gender identity before pulling the trigger. I am fully aware that Israel denies all Palestinian refugees the right of return, regardless of sexuality. I am also painfully aware that some of the soldiers killing my relatives are gay, lesbian and trans, and that they do not view Palestinian queers as “family” but as terrorists, rioters and the enemy.”

On June 8, 2018 LGBTQ activists blocked the path of the Pride Parade in Tel Aviv to protest the Israeli government’s use of their community to cover up its discriminatory and racist policies and the occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza.  Anti-pinkwashing activists in Tel Aviv passed out flyers at Pride making connections between the Pride Parade and the #GreatMarchofReturn protests occurring simultaneously in Gaza which said,

“Political protest is the heart of the Pride March. Pride Month is celebrated in June to commemorate the Stonewall Riots when LGBTQ people protested against the oppression and persecution of the community. They were not civil, they were not polite, they rose up.Palestinians also have the right to protest, but since the beginning of the Great Return March in Gaza, more than 100 demonstrators have been killed. As members of a community that is still fighting for full rights and equality, we will not be silent in the face of human rights violations and repression of the freedom to protest. We will stand in solidarity with the Palestinians living under occupation and under siege. We oppose pinkwashing. We are proud of who we are, and we are shouting — there is no pride in occupation.”

There is a vibrant, organized community of Palestinian queers working to create a just, democratic Palestinian society that respects the dignity of every person.  Civil rights for LGBT people in one place does not excuse oppression or war crimes in another. We join with the queer Palestinians who are working hard for their own liberation and stand up and shout: Not in our name!