"The Times, They Are A-changing": On QAIA & the Dyke March

A small group of us from "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" marched in the Dykemarch on Saturday June 23, and in the Pridemarch on Sunday. We carried signs against the LGBT Center’s censorship of ANY programs or groups critical of Israel, and we carried signs protesting Israel’s "pinkwashing" (advertising Israel as a supposed haven for Gay people while suppressing the fact that it is a hell for Palestinians, whether Gay or straight.) I was amazed by the response. On Saturday an adorable young person ran up to us, thanked...

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QAIA's pride flyer - download & print

Print double-sided, 4 to a page. See you at Pridez! QAIA pride flyer 2012 var docstoc_docid="123221518";var docstoc_title="QAIA pride flyer 2012";var docstoc_urltitle="QAIA pride flyer 2012"...

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QAIA @ PRIDE: March with us! (Meet-up details now posted.)

We are seriously everywhere. You can march with QAIA five times this weekend! Fri 6/22 - Trans Day of Action - 3-7pm @ Washington Sq. Park - QAIA has wholeheartedly endorsed this event, and a few of us will be there, but no contingent. It's at Washington Square Park, but we also heard there's a march down Christopher Street? Fri 6/22 - Queer Ball - 6:30pm starting @ Washington Sq. Park - anti-corporate ki-ki from the end of the Trans march to the start of the Drag march, at Tompkins Square Park. Fri 6/22 -...

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"Pinkwatching Israel" has a fierce new website

Pinkwatching Israel just launched a fancy new website that tracks and debunks pinkwashing campaigns, and hosts a library of resources for anti-pinkwashers. Maybe the most awesome update on the new site is about the coordination of 23 Muslim and Arab queer organizations to fight some pretty odious pinkwashing, in late 2011. '[HM2F]... published an ethnographic report on Palestinian queer life - a subject completely unfamiliar to them. Indeed, HM2F is a French Muslim queer organisation that deems the occupying...

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Gay institutions vs. progressive queers, in the Village Voice ("Does Gay Inc. believe in free speech?")

We've been thinking it, you've been thinking it, and now the Village Voice's Steven Thrasher has written an excellent article on it: GLAAD, HRC, the LGBT Center and other gay institutions are obstacles to queer community organizing, not helpers. They answer to their boards full of finance industry gay-bots, not queers. They use queers -- and especially queer tragedies of violence and exclusion -- as their platform for taking a seat at the table with corporations and politicians. There, they hold on to power by not...

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Wed 6/20: SIT-IN MEETING for pride planning, t-shirt-making & sign-sparkling.

Occupy the Center! Join Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC) for our sign-making, Pride-planning SIT-IN at the LGBT Community Center this Wednesday night. NYC LGBT Community Center208 W. 13th St. – Lobby!Wed., June 20 6:30 PMBring a (very) light-colored t-shirt to get the QAIA stencil. --------------------------Ok queers – it’s time to Occupy the Center again!  Until the Center takes a clear stand against anti-Arab hate – until the outrageous ban on pro-Palestinian queer organizing is rescinded –...

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Israeli queers against apartheid...

Okay, so it's from 2 years ago. Still good! http://www.flickr.com/photos/gangreen/sets/7215762426510356...

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Join QAIA for Pride month events and actions.

QAIA @ Brooklyn Pride! Saturday, June 9, 7:30pm Palestine solidarity queers will stand alongside the Pride March route (instead of marching this year.) Meet at 14th St., bet. 5th and 6th Aves. -Subway: F,G,R to 4th Ave. and 9th St.- (ISO, which will be part of the sideline Palestine contingent, is hosting a fundraiser/party starting at 6pm in the same location at 274 14th St.) QAIA @ Manhattan Pride! Sunday, June 24 - Check back here for details. QAIA will march as a contingent in NYC Pride. To be kept updated, help...

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Pinkwashing is NPR's top story right now!

This story popped up on NPR's All Things Considered this afternoon, and this evening it's the top story on NPR's website! It's pretty straightforward reporting on the issue: Israel is unpopular so it's doing intensive PR, it's using queers as fodder and massively overblowing its queer progress, and the occupation is still a war crime that can't be papered over. Couldn't be simpler. Full text is below, but go read it on NPR's website. June 4, 2012The sun is setting, gay pride flags wave next to the water, same-sex...

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At NYC Israel parade, QAIA challenges "gay rights" diversion from apartheid laws

PRESS RELEASE For immediate release Date: June 3, 2010 "QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID" PROTEST AT NYC ISRAEL PARADE Protesters denounce Israeli government plan to use pro-gay messages to divert attention from apartheid laws; challenge Quinn to oppose anti-Muslim discrimination at LGBT Center New York - LGBT activists protested at New York City's "Celebrate Israel" parade today, objecting to Israel's apartheid laws denying Palestinian human rights and its use of gay rights messaging to portray Israel as open and...

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Sunday, June 3: PROTEST Salute To Israel parade with QAIA

This Sunday, June 3rd, QAIA will be present with our anti-occupation and anti-pinkwashing signs at a location along the Celebrate Israel Parade! NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn is marching in the Salute to Israel parade. She's fresh from weighing in against the Park Slope Food Co-op even voting on whether to consider boycotting Israeli goods -- but has refused to meet with QAIA about how the LGBT Center has become a tool for anti-Palestinian bias and anti-Arab discrimination in NYC. PROTEST THIS SUNDAY,...

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Jewish QAIA does CBST

This week, the Jewish members of QAIA wrote a note to our community -- just a resource list, really, and some encouragement to get out from under the hasbara. The occasion was the Israeli Consul's talk at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah. QAIA members handed the letter to folks on their way into the service. The only person who shoved it back at us came back later for a clean copy. Rabbi Kleinbaum came out to make sure we knew we were welcome inside. After Aharoni's glib talk about how to recruit Israel supporters,...

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Re: "Arab panic" mural in West Village

Seen in the West Village. (in response to this mural.....

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"Arab panic" mural in West Village

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/ 2012/05/17/a-west-village-mural-weighs- gay-rights-in-the-middle-east/ There's a new "Arab panic" mural in the West Village. In a clumsy attempt to win over queers, NYC Birthright Israel Alumni commissioned the piece. For context, Birthright is the free-trip-to-Israel organization founded to encourage Jewish youth to have sex, make Jewish babies and/or get married, and make "oh yeah, I've been to Israel" into a sort of tribal rite of passage. It is the so-very-opposite of queer. This...

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"Debate for the Sake of Heaven: A Community Talk with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum"

Rabbi Kleinbaum is recently back from the 1st LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine. Congregation Beth Simchat Torah has been led by pretty politically conservative members even though its congregants aren't all so conservative. This talk is "balanced" by a talk on 5/25 by Ido Aharoni, Israel's Consul General in NYC... ----- A Community Talk with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum Debate for the Sake of Heaven: A Community Talk with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum Tuesday, 5/15, 7pm, CBST, 57 Bethune Street Perhaps no issue...

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Letter from the 1st LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine

An Open Letter to LGBTIQ Communities and Allies on the Israeli Occupation of Palestine "We are a diverse group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and trans activists, academics, artists, and cultural workers from the United States who participated in a solidarity tour in the West Bank of Palestine and Israel from January 7-13, 2012.  What we witnessed was devastating and created a sense of urgency around doing our part to end this occupation and share our experience across a broad cross-section of the LGBTIQ...

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(In)Equality Forum 2012: Pinkwashing & the Palestinian Queer Community

KNOW Pinkwashing Presents: (In)Equality Forum 2012: Pinkwashing & the Palestinian Queer Community Featuring Pauline Park, co-founder of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC QAIA) and Che Gossett of ACT UP Philadelphia. When: Saturday, May 5, 3-5 p.m. Where: William Way LGBTQ Community Center, 1315 Spruce Street, in the Mark Segal Ballroom The 2012 Equality Forum chose Israel as its ‘featured nation’ and invited Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. By working in coordination with the...

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ADL weighs in to defend pinkwashing (as ever.)

Shocking no one, the Anti-Defamation League is booing queer activists who call out Israel's pinkwashing. ("The Persistency of “Pinkwashing” Allegations at Columbia University" (5/12/12)) The ADL is an original pinkwasher, producing this poster (at left) around 2002 -- waaay before the Israeli foreign ministry launched the "Brand Israel" campaign. Thanks again for your support, right-wing straight peop...

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Academic paper: "How Queer Palestinian Womyn ‘Queer’ Palestinian Identity"

From Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine: For anyone interested, here is a free downloadable copy of the thesis "How Queer Palestinian Womyn ‘Queer’ Palestinian Identity". It surveys the literature on LGBT Palestinians and contains interviews with LGBT Palestinians in Aswat. It's pretty helpful for contextualizing. (SJP's link to Aswat's page is broken, so here's the original.) http://www.ruor.uottawa.ca/en/bitstream/handle/10393/20227/Moussa_Ghaida_2011_thesis....

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Queering Solidarity: A Panel on Pinkwashing and LGBTQ Activism for Israel-Palestine

"Queering Solidarity: A Panel on Pinkwashing and LGBTQ Activism for Israel-Palestine" with Columbia Law School Professor Katherine Franke and Harvard PhD Candidate Sa’ed Adel Atshan April 10th, 8:00pm @ Barnard College Sponsored by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine Details: http://www.facebook.com/events/297903396946120/...

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Reportback from the First US LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine

Creating Solidarities: A Conversation with Members of the First US LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine April 11th, 2012 7:30 p.m. @ Brecht Forum, 451 West Street New York, NY 10014 (212) 242-4201 In January 2012, several prominent LGBTQ activists/scholars/cultural workers from the United States traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of the first delegation of its kind. This panel, comprised of six of the delegates, will focus on: the experiences of the delegates; critical analyses...

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QAIA flyering for Park Slope Food Co-op vote on BDS

In case you have not yet heard, there is an important effort to have the Park Slope Food Coop join the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Even if you are not a member of the Food Coop you can help! Below is some background on what's happening. Here are two things you can do: 1) Queers Against Israeli Apartheid has signed up for one slot of leafletting at the Food Coop, as have many other groups around the city. If you can join us for an hour or two this coming Sunday, March 18th at...

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"Equality Forum" pinkwashing defended in seriously racist gay article

Israeli Ambassador Michael OrenEquality Forum's keynote speaker Drape this guy in rainbows, and he's still a straight, war-mongering, racist politician telling queers what to think. The Equality Forum, an annual symposium (organized by a Log Cabin Republican and sporting a website with pictures only of white people), is making Israel its featured nation this year. In addition to being an pretty foul, deliberately-timed act of pinkwashing, the whole thing is creepily fetishy about Israelis....

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Hanging out the pinkwashing: word is on the street.

It took a while, but after 5 years of Israeli PR targeted at LGBT tourists, queers are finally succeeding in blowing the lid off the Israeli government's pinkwashing campaign. Just as pro-Israel/pro-Apartheid newspapers are full of claims (like this one) that queers should adore Israel and despise Palestinians, LGBT newspapers are increasingly full of calls to refuse the hate bait. Here are this week's bits: Calling Israel to task - Philadelphia Gay News (About the Equality Forum's plan to highlight Israel as...

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Heidi Boghosian (National Lawyers Guild) speaks @ "Occupy the Center!"

Remarks by Heidi Boghosian, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild LGBT Center Protest, March 3, 2012 I’m not supposed to be here today! The National Lawyers Guild Legal Observers are not supposed to be here today! We usually fight the oppressors who squelch free speech. This is the first Occupy event that I’ve addressed, and I had to come today because I am a part of this community. As the legal arm to many social movements for 75 years, the National Lawyers Guild watched the growth of the LGBT Center with...

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QAIA intro to "Occupy the LGBT Center!"

Mic check!! Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is here to Occupy the LGBT Center, to protest the Center's exclusion of queers from our own community space. We see the barricades outside, we see the cops! They are shamefully policing queers who are challenging the Center's racist exclusion. They are shamefully policing queers who challenge pinkwashing of Israeli apartheid. Shamefully policing queers who challenge anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigots. For the last year, the Center's director and board have shut...

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Pix from Occupy the LGBT Center!

View QAIA's whole album here. More pix here, from Maqsum.  View the whole album her...

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Video, articles & speak-outs from "Occupy the Center!"

Video #Occupy The NYC LGBT Community Center for Queer Palestinians (Siegebusters Ban) Occupy the Center M3: "There is a Check Point Around this Center! Check this." Articles Gay City News: Protest Hits Ongoing Ban on Israeli-Palestinian Debate at NYC LGBT Center Times of Israel: Anti-Israel protesters return to New York LBGT center Speak-outs (in chronological order) Emmaia Gelman - Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Tara Tabassi & Ana Conor - FIERCE Heidi Boghosian - National Lawyers Guild Darnell Moore...

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Darnell Moore @ Occupy the Center!

Photo: Bud Korotzer Comments from Darnell L. Moore, March 3 @ Occupy the Center! Darnell Moore (Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality at NYU) just returned from the US LGBT delegation to Palestine. During our delegation's visit to Hebron, we stood on a street separated by a 3-4 ft. partition. This barrier was seemingly designed to ensure safety...to somehow keep the peace by forcing a form of disconnection between the Israeli settlers and Palestinian people living there. We stood on the...

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ROCKED IT: reportback from "Occupy the LGBT Center!"

Yesterday, 150 people occupied the LGBT Center!! Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and 15 other groups* packed the lobby with chants, signs, speak-outs and a banner drop. Check out photos, video and press coverage. We protested the Center's horrifying indifference to the queers of color, Arab and Muslim queers, and activist queers whose work got us where we are today -- and who are marginalized by the ban on queer human rights organizing in solidarity with Palestinians. We protested the Center's shameful...

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For Immediate Release PRESS ADVISORY CONTACT: Pauline Park  (718) 662-8893 (c); (718) 424-4003 (h)paulinepark@earthlink.net OCCUPY THE CENTER! Protest censorship by New York’s LGBT Community Center WHO:  Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and other groups (list below) WHEN:  Saturday, March 3, 2012 from 4-6 PM WHERE: LGBT Community Center, 208 W. 13th St. between 7th and 8th Avenues WHY: One year ago, amidst great controversy, the LGBT Center banned groups opposing Israeli apartheid....

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