Queer voices are being co-opted for racist, anti-gay attacks. Where are our advocates?

Going forward, QAIA's blog will include opinion posts like this one from individual activists, marked with an "Opinion" tag. These are not QAIA statements.

This is an op-ed written in July 2011, just after QAIA and other anti-apartheid queers had populated Pride marches across New York City. It was never published. Gay City News seemed fatigued of constantly covering the issue, but hadn't (and still hasn't) covered the intense implications of queer institutions' complete failure to respond to a racially- and politically-loaded community uproar. This piece ranged too far for GCN. Mainstream outlets weren't covering the issue at all.

Now that QAIA's blog is up and we can publish ourselves, the same issues seem (unfortunately) just as relevant as they did then. Big queer organizations have not stepped up to insist on queers' right to organize and be safe within our own community. The Israeli government's cynical pinkwashing of persists, and queers who object are still branded "controversial." Right wing hatemongering against Arabs and Muslims is still masked by hatemongers in leftist clothing, who claim to be supporting apartheid on behalf of us poor downtrodden queers. And those of us who object too loudly are still threatened with exclusion and retribution -- not just by Israel boosters, but by our own queer institutions acting on the instructions of straight, politically powerful actors.

We have a lot of work to do.

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Queer voices are being co-opted for racist, anti-gay attacks. Where are our advocates?
Emmaia Gelman and Imani Henry - July 3, 2011

The LGBT Center's ban on support for Palestinian LGBT groups was shocking, but it pales in light of the assault now extending far beyond the Center's turf. Outside forces – not queer – are increasingly pressing the queer community to isolate Arab queers and amp up anti-Arab racism. Dirty tricks are escalating: like a massively jacked-up version of “DamascusGayGirl”, the Israeli government was just busted for posing as a queer vlogger. Like fake Arab lesbian blogger Tom McMaster, the Israeli video stole a queer voice to gain credibility – in this case, to claim that opponents of Israel's human rights violations are secretly anti-gay.

The Center has crumbled under these tactics. But will other LGBT institutions stay quiet?

The assault started when shiny millionaire porn producer Michael Lucas heard that the group Siegebusters was meeting at the Center to support the US Boat to Gaza. Lucas, an Israel supporter and anti-Arab pontificator, reportedly organized conservative donors to stop giving if the Center didn't eject Siegebusters. The Center complied, over objections from the Audre Lorde Project, Queers for Economic Justice, Jews Against the Occupation, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, FIERCE, SALGA, GAPIMNY, and Palestinian queer groups Aswat, Al-Qaws and Palestinian Queers for BDS. As Lucas said at the Center's subsequent forum: “why shouldn't the people who give the money tell the Center what to do?”

But the controversy soon jumped from the queer community to the hetero world of US-Israel politics. The NY Jewish Community Relations Council and Jewish Council on Public Affairs were apparently activated by Stuart Appelbaum, gay politically-wired front man of a NYC union, and labor's representative to major Jewish organizations. The lobby groups reportedly asked to meet with the Center on the issue. Appelbaum also contacted elected officials to ensure they would call the Center to support the ban. The Center didn't meet them, and its official position is that it got no such calls from electeds. But the groups Appelbaum mobilized are powerful in New York City politics. When they're up in arms about Israel, electeds think twice before declining requests to support their position. Their demands for a meeting were certainly enough to send a message to the Center.

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Wiesenthal Center, a Holocaust memorial organization criticized for Muslim-baiting, called queers who support Palestinian queers' demands for human rights “self-hating gays” who '...should be shunned by all LGBT NGOs. By accepting them, the New York center is providing a fig leaf for Arab homophobia.' The JPost article was written by Benjamin Weinthal, a contributor to Gay City News who opposes queer critics of Israel.

Neither the New York lobby groups nor the Wiesenthal Center are remotely gay. But following their efforts, the Center cancelled more meetings and officially banned any on the “Israeli-Palestinian issue.” Since only Palestine human rights groups had scheduled meetings, the ban shut out only those queers whom the JCRC, JCPA and Wiesenthal Center disliked. The Center's unimpressive ambitions were to “avoid controversy” and “not take a position.” But outside lobbying pushed the Center into new waves of controversy, and committed the Center to enforcing anti-Arab racism in the queer community.

It's not new that conservative, anti-Arab straight voices are speaking for queers. For five years, Israel's “Brand Israel” campaign has lobbied queers to view Israel as a gay haven, and the antidote to Islam. That's why the Israeli consulate suddenly marches in Pride, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry markets gay trips to Israel, and last February the JCRC flew queer NY City Councilmembers to Tel Aviv's gay community center. It's straight people – a government with a human rights problem – pretending to speak on behalf of queers, to queers.

Real Israeli and Palestinian queers call Israel's gay spin “pinkwashing.” Palestinian queers have rejected the idea that Israel makes them safe, when Palestinians are constantly denied rights and safety under Israel's military occupation. They note that occupation is the main force behind Palestinian conservatism: Palestinian society, when free, is historically liberal. Inside Israel, gay couples in which at least one partner is non-Jewish (or worse, Arab) face huge obstacles to Israel's much-touted residency and adoption rights. Homophobic violence, compounded by racism against Arab queers, is as persistent as anywhere else.

Pinkwashing may be too old hat to properly scandalize us. But the escalation over Pride weekend was stunning.

First, a NYC Pride contingent was attacked by a gang of Israelis. The marchers had signs reading "Stop Pinkwashing Israeli Apartheid" and "Stonewall Means Fight Back – from Wisconsin to NYC to Palestine." Most were queers of color and women, including many Jewish women. Reportedly, men wearing Israeli pride contingent shirts “rushed into [our] midst... yelling, pushing, thrusting themselves and their signs in front of us... body-checking and pushing our folks.” They knocked a 68-year old marcher to the ground with a metal pole. The attackers were finally pulled out by horrified onlookers from the Armenian contingent.

Next, a weird YouTube video emerged, purportedly by a gay activist who had tried to join the flotilla to Gaza – the same flotilla that Siegebusters was working on. The video claimed organizers rejected the man because they were cozying up to Hamas, therefore a queer passenger would be a problem. Since there are indeed many queers on board the ships, the video raised eyebrows. It turned out to be fake, made by an Israeli PR firm and distributed by two Israeli government workers.

A fake. The Israeli government is impersonating us.

The only thing more shocking would be the continued silence of Big Gay organizations in response to these racially charged assaults on queer identity, voices and bodies. The Center has already committed to silence. In a press release, it explained that it's too hard to let in queers who face opposition; the Center opts just to censor queer human rights work so it can get back to providing support groups. (Frankly, board president Mario Palumbo should resign since he clearly isn't up to the task.)

But we're still waiting to hear from NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, which hasn't yet responded to the charge of queers of color that the Center is no longer safe space for them. AVP is even more urgently missed since queers challenging Israeli policy are now being physically attacked. We're waiting for GLAAD to object to queer images coopted to thwart human rights efforts.We're waiting for Lambda Legal to stand up for queers' right to organize ourselves, although Lambda lists Lucas and his boyfriend (formerly president of the Center's board) as fundraising “sponsors.”

We won't be silent while we wait. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will hold another meeting on July 5th at the Center. Yes, we're banned. It'll have to be a sit-in, again.

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Emmaia Gelman and Imani Henry are members of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.