Video: QAIA w. Haneen Maikey + Saadia Toor on Islamophobia

 On October 25, QAIA joined with Haneen Maikey and Saadia Toor for a conversation about Islamophobia and pinkwashing -- and a fundraiser for al Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestine.  Here's the video! This conversation will be the basis for thinking about our work going forward -- and for many more conversations. Please join us! Please donate to Al Qaws' critical decolonizing work at their website...

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Video: QAIA & Sarah Schulman at the LGBT Center

On March 11, 2013, QAIA hosted Sarah Schulman for a reading at the LGBT Center -- the event that the Center had banned. The ban raised such an outcry that the Center was finally forced to deal with it... Here is the whole event!...

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Connecting pinkwashing + NYC Islamophobia

QAIA cosponsored "Jewish Responses to Islamophobia and Anti-Arab Racism" this week, organized by Jews Against Islamophobia. The event a Congregation Beth Simchat Torah was "a roundtable conversation about how we can strengthen our work as Jews committed to challenging Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism. We hope the conversation will help us think more deeply about how we can most effectively engage as partners and allies in one of the most pressing and important civil and human rights issues of our time."...

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Oct. 25 - QAIA with Haneen & Saadia: Queers, Islamophobia & Apartheid!

NYC QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID hostHANEEN MAIKEYalQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Societyand Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and SanctionsandSAADIA TOOR CUNY Associate Professor for Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work CUNY Associate Professor for Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, and NYC queer and Muslim activistModerated by Emmaia Gelman, NYC QAIAFRIDAY, OCTOBER 25th, 6:30-8:30pm @ the North Star Fund, 520 Eighth Ave, 22nd Floor (near...

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Immediate need: QuAIA's John Greyson & Tarek Loubani detained in Egypt

Many of us have met and worked with John Greyson of QuAIA Toronto. He's been detained in Egypt on the way to Gaza. He and Tarek Loubani, a friend who is detained along with him, need support. Needless to say, they're in danger as long as they're in custody. PLEASE check http://tarekandjohn.com for information on simple, critical ways to help. Also please sign the petition to free John and Tarek. How to contact US offices: Egyptian Embassy: 202-966-6342 // embassy@egyptembassy.net Canadian Embassy: Gary...

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After the QPH forum: More straight people tell queers how great Israel is for us.

From Pauline, a heads up about the Queens Chronicle's reaction to the Palestine forum at Queens Pride House: Attached are the news story & the editorial that the Queens Chronicle just published on the Israel/Palestine forum that we had at Queens Pride House on Tuesday. As you can see, the article is a pretty 'straight forward' news story, even if the reporter did get QAIA's name wrong. The editorial, on the other hand, is more like a scene from "The Empire Strikes Back."  While the editorial is extremely...

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March with QAIA in Brooklyn Pride! and other places!

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid @ Brooklyn Pride Saturday, June 8th Meet QAIA at 7 pm on 5th Ave. at Union Street,  in front of the gym - used to be a bank In past years, it has been particularly fabulous to march in BK pride. Folks on the sidelines and in the march understand why we're there, and are mostly really supportive and glad to see queer anti-apartheid activists on the move. Let's go to there! The parade begins at 7:30 pm, but we'd like to form our contingent by 7pm. Some of us will march...

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Flyers to download! QAIA/Boycott Apartheid Tourism

Hi Queers - fun times! We'll be trolling around with these flyers all summer... This Pride season, queers around the world are fighting back against Israel's push for [white male] gay tourism. Resistance is sexy! Apartheid not so much! Here are NYC-QAIA's flyers. You can email around the images below, or download a printable version here. (The PDF has 4 flyers on a page, intended for double-sided copies.) Feel free to send them far and wide! xoxo NYC-QAIA ...

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QAIA/Queens Pride House forum: June 4, 7pm!

New York City Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC QAIA) are pleased to co-sponsor a forum on Israel/Palestine at Queens Pride House on Tuesday, June 4 from 7-9 p.m. The event will feature a panel discussion with Sarah Schulman and Pauline Park.  A noted activist, Schulman is Distinguished Professor at the College of Staten Island (CSI) of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the author of 17 books, including ten novels, five nonfiction books, and two plays; her most recent book is "Israel/Palestine...

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Upcoming QAIA-NYC Events

Sign up for our email notices about these and other activities of QAIA: April 3rd - Teach-in on Pinkwashining POSTPONED! Please check back here soon for the new date and other details! April 11th - Part of "Impossible Communities" Panel at Homonationalism and Pinkwashing Conference at CUNY. The conference is sold out, but if you already have a ticket please check out our presentation on this panel. April 24th - General Meeting of QAIA. 6 pm at The LGBT Center, 208 West 13th St., Manhattan. This meeting is open...

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Petition! NYC Electeds: stand up for free speech, including on Israel.

Join QAIA in signing this letter to elected officials!  Yesterday, QAIA and a coalition of 15 other Muslim, Jewish, Arab, South Asian, Iranian, LGBT and student groups delivered a letter to NYC elected officials. Please join us as we begin to hold electeds accountable, and clear space for free public discussion of Israeli apartheid, BDS and pinkwashin...

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GCN calls it: LGBT pols' "perfect inversion" of reality

Gay City News' editor Paul Schindler writes this week about the shameful behavior of LGBT elected officials. (First they failed to confront the LGBT Center's pusillanimous failure to stand up for the queer community's right to have its own ideas; then they piled on with a scandalous failure of their own.) Schindler's letter speaks for itself. The queer community has spoken for itself, too. Deafening silence persists, though, from the other queer institutions who would be our "leaders." LGBT Community Center:...

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Dueling op-eds: NY Post & NY Daily News

Can it be that that the doomed, wrongheaded effort to repress speech at a City University has ended decades of blackout on public debate on BDS, queers, silencing criticism of Israel and EVERYTHING!!!? Today, Omar Barghouti talks gentle sense in the Daily News! Alan Dershowitz spews victimology and hate (targeting CUNY again, and queers too) in the NY Post! The floor is open, people. Barghouti: "Our opponents call us “Jew haters.” That is a lie and a slander. BDS advocates equal rights for all and consistently...

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The Nation: Victory, except on PEPs.

Lisa Duggan's new piece continues The Nation's coverage of how "progressive" electeds routinely throw Palestinians (and Muslims, and Arabs, and more...) under the bus. Indeed, there's a set of "Progressive, Except Palestine" politicians who draw funding and political capital from the pro-Israel lobby to support whatever moderately left-of-center work they do on fair wages, housing, policing, etc. The more the pro-Israel lobby extracts from those PEPs, though, the further they're pushed into right-wing positions. And...

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Getting personal with Michael Lucas (thanks, Mondoweiss.)

We don't like to pay much attention to Michael Lucas. Yes, he was the initiator of the "Muslim panic" at the LGBT Center which led to the Center's horrifying series of repressive actions: panic-cancelling a Palestine-related event; holding a kangeroo "community forum" in which they totally ignored the calls of the queer community to resist the panic; suddenly reframing the Center's mission as fulfilling social service contracts instead of being home to a community engaged in messy but important self-determination;...

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Now at our community center!!! March 11: QAIA's Schulman reading

NYC Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is (extremely!) proud to present... Sarah Schulman reading from her new book Israel/Palestine and the Queer International Mon. March 11 @ 7pm NYC LGBT Community Center (208 West 13th St. Free & open to the public! --------- Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC-QAIA) is proud to welcome Sarah Schulman with a reading from her new book, Israel/Palestine and the Queer International as NYC launches Israel Apartheid Week. This event is a huge victory...

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The petition! End the ban.

On Valentine's Day, the LGBT Center's refusal to provide space for QAIA's reading with Sarah Schulman spawned a Change.org petition. Within a few days, it had over 1,000 signatures and was on fire across queer email lists and Facebook. Some signers were outraged about the imposition of lock-step support for Israel, some were outraged about lock-step support for any state, and some were outraged about the suppression of queer speech and organizing in our community spaces. As the petition vented the bottled-up rage...

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MuzzleWatch on City Council's "JCRC-inspired/SNL parody" statement, ha!

That's right, lady: after a victory you get to laugh a little, dammit! http://www.muzzlewatch.com/2013/02/15/mazel-tov-lgbt-center-shame-on-christine-c-quinn-et-al/ '...within seconds of the NYC LGBT Center’s posting of their new policy, four NY elected officials, led by NYC Council Speaker Christine C. “I just can’t get enough free trips to Israel” Quinn, issued a NY Jewish Community Relations Council inspired statement supporting the decision but then reiterating their irrational and non-fact based terror of a...

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QAIA on LGBT Center's tentative move toward free speech

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC QAIA) statement in response to rescission of the LGBT Center's moratorium on Palestine solidarity organizing For info: Pauline Park (718) 662-8893 Steve Ault (718) 928-3777 The New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center issued a statement earlier today (Feb. 15, 2013) lifting the moratorium on Palestine solidarity organizing and discussion of Israel/Palestine.  While we are pleased to see the Center's announcement, we...

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This is wild: Center "lifts moratorium", NYC electeds bid to reimpose it.

Check out this announcement from the NYC LGBT Center, posted about 15 minutes ago... and the racist, repressive press release from NYC electeds (below), posted about four nanoseconds later. STATEMENT ON CENTER SPACE USE POLICY FROM GLENNDA TESTONE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AND THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY CENTER February 15, 2013 – In 2011 the Center was thrust into a controversy involving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict about which we took no position, but were forced...

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Sarah unpacks it for you in 5 minutes or less.

One thing you can say about Sarah Schulman: she has a knack for wading into a somewhat complex issue that has nice liberals wringing their hands about what's right and how to walk the delicate line between (for instance) anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism (they're not worrying about the line between Zionism and anti-Arab racism in this example) -- and she can pick up that line like a freakin' javelin and stab waffling in the heart. Which is to say, this is a refreshing little interview. Saeed Jones' BuzzFeed interview...

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QAIA's statement on Center's banning of our event with Sarah Schulman

Statement from Queers Against Israeli Apartheid on the NYC LGBT Center’s banning of QAIA-NYC’s Sarah Schulman reading Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is (again) appalled at the hijacking of our NYC LGBT Community Center. At this point, the Center has banned any discussion of Palestine – and the growing movement to support Palestinian queers’ calls for civil and human rights – for two full years. We’re reminded that the Center’s board enacted this ban at the instigation of an avowed Islamophobe, who uses his wealth...

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Gay City News: LGBT Center Bars Sarah Schulman Reading

LGBT Center Bars Sarah Schulman Reading 'A leading queer community author was barred from an appearance at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center apparently because the book she was to discuss deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.'  '“We requested space for me to do a presentation of my new book ‘Israel/ Palestine and the Queer International,’ which has gotten a good review in the Lambda Literary Review,” wrote Sarah Schulman in a February 11 email. “It is amazing to me that after...

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Comic biteback: There's a checkpoint around this Center!

Check out Ethan Heitner's really beautiful exposition of Tara and Ana's throwdown at "Occupy the Center!" The full 8 panel comic is posted on mondoweiss.net today. ...

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Honduran queer event organizers call out LGBT Center's racism

QAIA was just forwarded this letter from NYC queer organizers working in support of Honduran queers. Go, sisters! The Center's claim that it's "open" break down as the community excluded gets broader and broader. The Center has flatly ignored critiques about its racism, refusing to be accountable to its community, or to present any response at all. This event (on 2/12) will be held instead at the Venezuelan Consulate -- click on the image for details. ------------ Dear Ms. Testone: This Tuesday, February...

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Brooklyn College BDS: Judith Butler's remarks

QAIA folks who attended the Omar Barghouti/Judith Butler event on BDS at Brooklyn College were moved and strengthened by the talk. Judith Butler's remarks are archived at The Nation magazine. They cover BDS, the illogic of decrying BDS or anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, and academic freedom. http://www.thenation.com/article/172752/judith-butlers-remarks-brooklyn-college-bds "...When Zionism becomes co-extensive with Jewishness, Jewishness is pitted against the diversity that defines democracy, and if I may say so,...

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QAIA reportback from Brooklyn College

From Brad Taylor Normal 0 0 1 334 1907 15 3 2341 11.1287 0 0 0 Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti’s presentation at Brooklyn College on Thurs. night (Feb. 7) lived up to all the incredible hype that preceded it.  They were informative, engaging, appealing, constructive – as much as their full-capacity audience wanted and expected.  They were sometimes funny – Judith paused wryly in her remarks about hearing and listening, allowing the sound of the...

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Paisley Currah on standing up to NYC's "Progressive Except Palestine" Councilmembers

Paisley Currah writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the furor over Brooklyn College's Poli Sci department co-sponsoring a talk on BDS. http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/02/05/a-melee-grows-in-brooklyn/ "...The usual suspects—New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, the Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz—piled on, and the rhetoric escalated. “We’re talking about the potential for a second Holocaust here,” one assemblyman told The Daily Beast. I’ve gotten hate mail and a death threat. I’ve...

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