US queers are increasingly familiar with pinkwashing and Israeli apartheid, but as they say, solidarity is complicated. Getting information, separating information from propaganda, and entering accountably into public discussion about Israel, Palestine and particularly queers requires a lot of careful work.
Here, Pauline Park engages the Washington Blade's Kevin Naff. Naff recently returned from a sponsored tour to Israel, on which some participants got the sense that there was more to the story of Israel than "gay heaven", and called on their handlers to connect them with Palestinian voices.
Kevin Naff's reportback: Is Israel ‘gay heaven?’ It’s complicated
Read more »
Here, Pauline Park engages the Washington Blade's Kevin Naff. Naff recently returned from a sponsored tour to Israel, on which some participants got the sense that there was more to the story of Israel than "gay heaven", and called on their handlers to connect them with Palestinian voices.
Kevin Naff's reportback: Is Israel ‘gay heaven?’ It’s complicated
"Some critics claim the country’s embrace of LGBT rights is merely a propaganda effort to claim the mantle of modernity and establish a stark contrast to homophobic regimes in the West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East... I’m not convinced. Politics is about the art of the possible, not the ideal and certainly not the perfect. Sometimes we have to accept imperfect solutions or motives in the interest of securing protections for people in need... Our group trip featuring nine outspoken American LGBT advocates is simply not possible anywhere else in the region."Pauline Park's response: Pinkwashing & Israeli occupation – not so complicated
"Naff is in fact rearticulating... the attempt to use Israel’s record on gay rights (supposedly better than that of its Arab and Muslim neighbors) as a justification for an Israeli occupation that is illegal under international law, or at the very least as a means to distract attention from it... [Is] the issue of the Israeli occupation of Palestine really that complicated?... [The] occupation makes no exception for Palestinians who might be LGBT/queer, who face the same restrictions and daily humiliations living under Israeli occupation as non-LGBT Palestinians. And contrary to propaganda in circulation, Israel is not and cannot be a haven or a refuge for LGBT Palestinians because there is no such thing as refugee status for non-Jews in Israel, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity."
