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

NYC QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID

host
HANEEN MAIKEY
alQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society
and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions

and
SAADIA TOOR 
CUNY Associate Professor for Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work CUNY Associate Professor for Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, and NYC queer and Muslim activist

Moderated by Emmaia Gelman, NYC QAIA

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25th, 6:30-8:30pm

@ the North Star Fund, 520 Eighth Ave, 22nd Floor (near W. 36th St.)

Read more »

"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 government and its organisations “experts” on the occupied. Certainly, these members of alQaws did not know that their brief personal conversations with this Israeli-French “interfaith tour” would be used to paint a broad, distorted picture of Palestinian society. Last, HM2F’s report reproduced deeply racist and patronising rationalisations for alQaws’ refusal to host or engage with them, such as bowing to pressure from unnamed “pan-Arabist” organizations, rather than taking seriously alQaws’ repeated statements, which are grounded in an international call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions.'

The group letter is here, along with individual statements from many of the groups.

Read more »