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

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 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

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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

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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." (JVP-NY)

QAIA brought this letter to add to the conversation:


Islamophobia and Queers: Exploring the Links

We thank the Jews Against Islamophobia Coalition for sponsoring a series of panels addressing the question of Islamophobia. These events have helped deepen the much-needed discussion of this issue here in NYC.

NYC Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, working in solidarity with LQBTQ Palestinians and in support of Palestinian self-determination, urges us all to look at how Islamophobia is embedded in the use of “gay rights” to promote Israel as a self-described democratic, open society. Ostensibly “gay friendly” Israel is always implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) contrasted to repressive homophobic Arab and Muslim societies, feeding on and fuelling Islamophobia.

Israel’s policies do not create a safe haven for Palestinian queers. Recognizing gay “rights” does nothing to advance or broaden a rights discourse in Israel. These are rights compatible with a “for Jews-only” sectarianism and with patriarchal structures that require women to get their husbands’ permission for a divorce.

Deploying gay rights is a cover-up -- referred to as pinkwashing. Israel has spent decades making Palestinian bodies disappear—the ongoing demolition of Arab villages, house demolitions in Jerusalem, expulsion of Arab Bedouins from the Negev, imprisonment for those who dissent.

Palestinian queer organizations have made clear that rights for gays in an overall situation of domination and disparagement of Arabs and Muslims do not advance freedom for any Palestinians.

We hope that all those who oppose racism will look at the links between Islamophobia and queers—from NYC to (the rising far right in) Europe to Israel/Palestine.

Specifically we ask you to join us in the boycott of gay tourism to Israel, as part of our support for the broader BDS campaign. The city of Tel Aviv alone has allotted $90 million dollars to promote itself as a gay paradise, including sending gay “diplomats” to the U.S. to enlist liberal gays to defend Israel’s power over and against Palestinians. In the coming months, QAIA will be working to challenge the promoting of gay tourism and we welcome your cooperation in this effort.
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