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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