"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 mural does just what an advertisement is supposed to: hits a few buzz words, scares you into thinking you need what it's selling, and makes sure you don't get any real information. It reads:

Arabs are super scary and weird -- so not like you and me!
Men holding hands!
Gay wedding!
Pride parade!
Israel!

Which is also funny because queers actually can't get married in Israel. But never mind.

This crappy mural, lacking any hint of a queer aesthetic, absolutely crystallizes pinkwashing in the US. It's a message for queers, designed by straight people with no clue about queers (and apparently no access to the internet to learn about us), and stuck on a wall in a neighborhood that those people think of as gay. (News flash about gentrification, people! If you want to propagandize the West Village, focus on messaging about how great Israel is for bankers and movie stars.)  The mural is about as authentic as the YouTube video, exposed as an Israeli government propaganda piece, where a fake gay activist claims to have been rejected from the Free Gaza flotilla because of Palestinian homophobia.

It is AMAZING that anyone is falling for this stuff.