“France has voted for the law of love,” Autin, a 40-year-old gay rights activist, told a group of reporters who gathered to greet him and his new spouse. “For us it’s very important to be a bridge, especially here in the Middle East, so that what’s happened in France, and the way we are received and embraced here, can become an example for the rest of the Middle East.” - taken from an article about France’s first same-sex male married couple on their honeymoon in “Israel”…

aqueercrown:

Public Panel #1- SEXUAL DISCOURSES IN THE ZIONIST PROJECT- QUEER POLITICS AND LIBERATION (Dean Spade)

Trending Homonationalism – Natalie Kouri-Towe

“Gays, like women, are becoming a readily deployable tool in service of geopolitical interests that are oppressive and anti-emancipatory. As people concerned with fighting all forms, and all networks of injustice, we must not allow that to happen.”(Mikdashi 2011)

Pinkwashing is “the attempt by a state or people to highlight its treatment of gays to show how progressive it is, in turn covering up human rights violations from which it wishes to detract attention.”[1] It has repeatedly been used by western powers, for example, as a way to construct themselves as “superior” or “advanced” because they support LGBTQ rights, and to construct the Other as “backwards” because they supposedly don’t support these rights. A person or institution is engaging in pinkwashing when their motives are not to help LGBTQs but rather to further a separate agenda.

In the recent past, Israel has perhaps been the most avid “pinkwasher” due to its repeated attempts to divert attention away from its brutal occupation of Palestine by constructing itself as the “only gay haven in an otherwise homophobic Middle East.” Israel has launched publicity campaigns that are aimed at constructing Israel as a safe space for Middle Eastern homosexuals. This campaign, which has included widespread advertising, is aimed at showing that Israel is the only homophobia-free country in the Middle East. This is specifically in contrast to Palestine, which is automatically cast as a dangerous and violent place for LGBTQs.

It has been reiterated by numerous Palestinian LGBTQ groups that Israel is currently engaged in pinkwashing.  “In the last years Israel has been leading an international campaign that tries to present Israel as the “only democracy” and the “gay haven” in the Middle East, while ironically portraying Palestinians, who suffer every single day from Israel’s state racism and terrorism, as barbaric and homophobic” (Palestinian Queers for BDS, 2010).  Israel’s worsening image globally has led it to launch a pinkwashing campaign in which it portrays itself as the only homophobic-free democracy in the Middle East.  Stand With Us, a self-declared Zionist organization, were quoted as saying: “We decided to improve Israel’s image through the gay community in Israel” (Puar, 2010).  As Puar points out, the reason behind this is that “within global gay and lesbian organising circuits, to be gay friendly is to be modern, cosmopolitan, developed, first-world, global north, and, most significantly, democratic,” (Puar, 2010).

A useful way of describing pinkwashing is that it relies on the “ideological capital of tolerance” – in other words, at a time when gay rights are on the agenda of western liberals, Israel has seen the usefulness of portraying itself as a gay-friendly country. The special emphasis on sexuality is what makes Israel’s campaign a case of pinkwashing: by diverting attention away from its political role in occupying Palestine to its supposed role as a gay-friendly country, Israel is effectively attempting to re-brand itself.  An alternative definition of pinkwashing is the following: “Pinkwashing is the attempt to justify Israel’s occupation of Palestine by portraying it as a progressive and democratic haven for LGBT individuals in direct contrast with the rest of the Middle East” (Sager 2011).  As argued by Puar, Israel’s pinkwashing campaign also aims at creating a certain image of itself: “Israeli pinkwashing is a potent method through which the terms of Israeli occupation of Palestine are reiterated – Israel is civilised, Palestinians are barbaric, homophobic, uncivilised, suicide-bombing fanatics” (Puar, 2010; italics mine).

An important aspect of pinkwashing is the idea that the Palestinian cause is unworthy and illegitimate because Palestinians are homophobic.  This carries two assumptions.  One, that homophobia only exists in certain places among certain peoples, when in fact it is universal and exists even in Israel.  Two, that the Palestinian cause should be discredited because Palestinians are homophobic, as though only “ideal” or ”perfect” peoples deserve to be free and govern themselves.

This campaign is problematic on several levels.  First, Israel is not free of homophobia and portraying itself that way is simplistic and misleading.  Second, Palestine, as well as other Middle Eastern countries, have vibrant LGBTQ scenes which include organizations, events, campaigns, and media promotions.  Third, it appears that Israel is attempting to divert attention away from the occupation of Palestine and the various crimes it repeatedly commits there by re-branding itself as a gay-friendly country and thus endearing itself to western democracies and human rights organizations.  Finally, Israel is using and reproducing old Orientalist assumptions many in the west have about the Middle East, particularly with regards to homosexuality.

Since the wave of uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa, there have been repeated instances of pinkwashing emerging from the western mainstream media. In an excellent article, Maya Mikdashi and RM[2] argue:

The “gay issue” is becoming an increasingly hot topic in western media coverage of the Arab world. In fact, beginning with the spate of gay killings in US occupied Iraq, the status of non-normative sexualities has perhaps been enfolded within a discourse that highlights the plight of “women” in Arab/Muslim countries, and the ideological, material, and military mobilization that such a discourse licenses.

A critical reader might ask what lies behind this interest in gays? Where did it come from and what kinds of discourses and practices is it contributing to? What assumptions does this conversation make as to international practices of sexuality and politics, and what silences about other forms of oppression is this anxiety over the status of gay Arabs in Arab democracies implicated in?

This is not to say that homophobia does not exist in the Middle East. It does. It exists in every country in the world. However, the question here is: are these groups/governments legitimately and honestly concerned about LGBTQs in the Middle East, or are they simply using them and their struggles for their own ends, whether it is to show how much more advanced they are or to deflect attention away from their own homophobia/political problems? Does the Israeli government, for example, honestly want to help Palestinian LGBTQs, or is it simply using them to make a point about Israeli society being more advanced, and to whitewash its occupation? Indeed, if the Israeli government wanted to help Palestinian LGBTQs, wouldn’t removing an occupation be the first step?

Palestinian Queers for BDS write on their website[3]:

As an integral part of Palestinian society we believe that the struggle for sexual and gender diversity is interconnected with the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

As Palestinian queers, our struggle is not only against social injustice and our rights as a queer minority in Palestinian society, but rather, our main struggle is one against Israel’s colonization, occupation and apartheid; a system that has oppressed us for the past 63 years. Violations of human rights and international law, suppression of basic rights and civil liberty, and discrimination are deeply rooted in Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, straight and gay alike.

PQBDS show that the struggle for sexual rights cannot be separated from other political struggles, such as the one against Israeli occupation. They are interlinked, and should be fought together.

This focus on LGBTQ Middle Easterners is not new. It fits in with an Orientalist worldview in which Middle Eastern countries are seen as especially oppressive when it comes to minorities. Historically, these minorities have usually been religious minorities and women. More recently, however, there has been increased focus on LGBTQs as themost persecuted group in the Middle East. Again, this is not to say that LGBTQs do not face persecution in Middle Eastern countries: they do. My point is to ask why the west engages in pinkwashing, and why it repeatedly attempts to construct homophobia, sexism, and persecution of minorities in general as constantly happening in the Middle East, and never at home.

Similarly, focusing on LGBTQs in the Middle East fits into the framing of sexuality in Other societies that Orientalists usually engage in. Rather than focus on how specific histories of colonialism, imperialism, and western domination have led to certain types of homophobia in the modern Middle East, the focus is instead on how Islam, Arab culture, or other inherent traits are the reasons behind the homophobia in the Middle East.

In his monumental book, Desiring Arabs, Joseph Massad creates an intellectual history of how western scholars have tried to impose western categories of sexuality, namely the strict binary between heterosexual/homosexual, onto other cultures, and how this has led directly to specific forms of homophobia found in places such as the Middle East today:

The categories gay and lesbian are not universal at all and can only be universalized by the epistemic, ethical, and political violence unleashed on the rest of the world by the very international human rights advocates whose aim is to defend the very people their intervention is creating.

Moreover, Massad points out that it is necessary to look back to western history in order to understand how the categories of gay/lesbian were created for specific political and economic purposes:

We can say that homosexuals did not exist in Europe before the medical and juridical discourses of the second half of the nineteenth century invented them as subjects of medical and juridical intervention, and before capital created relations of production that made possible the development of new residential and migratory activities, and new kinship configurations within and without the biological family that led to the development of forms of sexual intimacy that would be linked to identity and community.

What Massad is essentially arguing is that while same-sex relationships and relations have existed in the Middle East as far back as can be accounted for, they were not understood or practiced in the forms that the west adopted in the late 18^th century, namely as strictly tied to identity or as strictly tied to the binary between homosexuality and heterosexuality. People in the Middle East did not identify themselves according to their sexual acts (and neither did people in the west, before the identity of homosexual, and later heterosexual, was created by the medical profession). This is not to say that people in the Middle East today should not identify as gay or lesbian or queer, as many do. It is to show the importance of going back in history in order to understand contemporary sexualities and sexual relations in the Middle East and to show how these evolved over time.

To return to the point of pinkwashing and the Arab uprisings, it is clear how LGBTQs are once again being used to prove a point about Middle Eastern culture. In her article on how the MENA uprisings have been framed, Maya Mikdashi makes the excellent point that the focus is almost always on issues of gender or sexuality:[4]

The legitimacy of a popular uprising and/or revolutionary struggle can be gauged by how it treats “their women” and “their gays.”

The act of pinkwashing in this instance, therefore, is to delegitimize the MENA uprisings because of their supposed lack of attention to LGBTQ and women’s rights. Rather than acknowledge the immense people power, creativity, bravery, and peacefulness of the millions of protesters that took to the streets in Tunis, Cairo, Damascus and Sanaa, the western mainstream media has chosen to divert attention to the ever-present Orientalist obsession: how minorities in the Middle East are (mis)treated.

As an Egyptian that has lived in Europe, it has become clear to me how essential pinkwashing is in the construction of the binary between the civilized “West” and the uncivilized “East.” It is difficult to get into a discussion with a Dutch person, for example, about Muslims without questions about Islam and women, Islam and homosexuality, and Islam and freedom dominating the conversation. Homosexuality is often used against Muslim “immigrants” (if you’re not white you’re forever an immigrant), rather than focusing on what Dutch society and government could be doing to help “integration” (which often means assimilation).

In conclusion, it is crucial to note that LGBTQs in the Middle East cannot be separated from the societies they are in, as Mikdashi points out:

Gay Arabs cannot be cut out of the fabric of their societies; they are Arab, they are Muslim, Christian, conservative and progressive, soldiers and civilians, communists and capitalists, sexist and feminist, classist and revolutionary, and both oppressors and the oppressed. Islamist discourses are not ossified and stuck in the 16th century, as most Western commentators assume. They are plural, responsive, dynamic, and they represent the point of view of a large and diverse public.

It is extremely problematic that queers in the Middle East are being used by western Orientalists in their constructions of themselves as superior and more civilized. Queers are being used as tools to delegitimize the tremendously important uprisings that are happening across the Middle East. People that are both queer and Middle Eastern recognize the intersectionality of these different identities, and therefore continue to fight both homophobia at home and racism, imperialism, and Orientalism, abroad.

Originally published here: http://w3.unisa.edu.au/muslim-understanding/documents/salem-pinkwashing.pdf

Sources:

Mikdashi, M. (2011). Gays, Islamists and the Arab Spring: What Would a Revolutionary Do? [Online]. June 11. Available from:http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1836/gays-islamists-and-the-arab-spring_what-would-a-re

Palestinian Queers for BDS. (2010). Palestinian Queers for BDS Call upon all Queer groups, organizations and individuals around the world to Boycott the Apartheid State of Israel. [Online]. 28^th June 2010. Available from –   http://pqbds.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/palestinian-queers-for-bds-call-upon-all-queer-groups-organizations-and-individuals-around-the-world-to-boycott-the-apartheid-state-of-israel/

Puar, J (2010). Israel’s Gay Propaganda War. Pinkwatching Israel. [Online]. July 1. Available from – http://www.pinkwatchingisrael.com/israels-gay-propaganda-war/

Sager, Maggie. (2011). Palestinian queer activists challenge the ‘pinkwashing’ of the Israeli occupation. [Online]. February 16, 2011. Available from –http://mondoweiss.net/2011/02/palestinian-queer-activists-challenge-the-pinkwashing-of-the-israeli-occupation.html

Sites with more information:

http://www.pinkwatchingisrael.com/

http://www.pqbds.com/

http://www.aswatgroup.org/

http://www.queersagainstisraeliapartheid.blogspot.com/

---

[1] http://room410.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/would-you-want-israel-at-your-gay-wedding-3/

[2] http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1836/gays-islamists-and-the-arab-spring_what-would-a-re

[3] http://www.pqbds.com/about/

[4] http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/4506/the-uprisings-will-be-gendered

totheexclusionofallothers:

Homonationalism Gone Viral: Discipline, Control, and the Affective Politics of Sensation

liminalbeast:

http://frontdu20mars.github.com/Vid%C3%A9os/2013/01/31/video-de-la-rencontre-du-20-mars-2012-avec-haneen-maikey-et-ramzy-kumsieh.html

kawrage:

Shabi Gatenio and Dan Littauer, the Israeli founders of the totally-not-Israeli GayMiddleEast.com, wrote an article on Israeli politicians’ “unique pledge to legislate pro gay laws”. [not linking]

Founded in 2002, GayMiddleEast.com was soon regarded as the authoritative source on LGBT rights in Arab countries. Meanwhile, the founders refused to be transparent about the site’s Israeli connection:

In a region where non-conformance (sexual and otherwise) is often regarded as a Western implant, even the least tenuous connection to Israel could lead to charges of treason. And herein lies the problem with GayMiddleEast.com; its refusal to be transparent.

In response to 2 specific concerns:

1) Why are activists not fully informed of GayMiddleEast.com’s Israel connection, so as to make informed choices about whether or not to get involved with the organisation?

2) Or better yet, why is the information not made publicly available on the website?

3) While GayMiddleEast.com claims to oppose pinkwashing, why have the grassroots campaigns by Palestinian queer activists to counter Israel’s pinkwashing been neither highlighted, nor endorsed?

GME claimed it was the victim of a ‘smear campaign’. Which lead to a statement by Arab queers -  ”Que(e)rying the Israeli-linked GayMiddleEast.com“ - which focused on 4 issues:

• Interventionism
• Co-option of queer Arab voices
• pinkwashing
• Violation of BDS

دان لطيزي وشابي جاته نيلة

(via kawrage)

“What is Queer BDS? Pinkwashing, Intersections, Struggles, Politics” is 1 of 2 public panels organized by Queer Visions at the World Social Forum: Free Palestine. Held in Porto Alegre, Brazil from November 28 to December 1, 2012, the World Social Forum: Free Palestine brought together activists from around the world organizing for justice in Palestine. Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, Pinkwatching Israel, and alQaws: for sexual and gender diversity in Palestinian society invite activists, social movements, and queer groups to join and endorse Queer Visions at the World Social Forum: Free Palestine.

Public Panel II: WHAT IS QUEER BDS? PINKWASHING, INTERSECTIONS, STRUGGLES, POLITICS

In different parts of the world queer groups and allies have aligned themselves with the Palestinian Liberation Struggle. Despite Israel’s attempt to win the favor of queer people in order to legitimize its occupation, activists and scholars have publicly and collectively renounced Israeli pinkwashing, occupation, and apartheid. A global queer movement is gaining momentum to promote Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions as a political tool to force Israel to abide by International Law.

In this panel, different activists will share their experiences, challenges and views on the contemporary state of queer solidarity for Palestine. They will talk about the diverse struggles that they have faced in promoting queer politics and BDS in their respective communities. Our special guest this afternoon is Angela Davis. Her vision and experience has empowered us all. We are honored to have her as our guest on this panel.

SPEAKERS

RAMZY KUMSIEH (PQBDS/QUEERISTAN, PALESTINE/THE NETHERLANDS)

NATALIE KOURI-TOWE (QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID, CANADA)

SELMA AL-ASWAD (SEATTLE, USA)

SARAH COLBORNE (PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN, UK)

ANGELA DAVIS (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ, USA)

MODERATOR: Mikki Stelder (The Netherlands)

“Sexual Discourses in the Zionist Project: Queer Politics and Liberation” is 1 of 2 public panels organized by Queer Visions at the World Social Forum: Free Palestine. Held in Porto Alegre, Brazil from November 28 to December 1, 2012, the World Social Forum: Free Palestine brought together activists from around the world organizing for justice in Palestine. Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, Pinkwatching Israel, and alQaws: for sexual and gender diversity in Palestinian society invite activists, social movements, and queer groups to join and endorse Queer Visions at the World Social Forum: Free Palestine.

Public Panel I: SEXUAL DISCOURSES IN THE ZIONIST PROJECT: QUEER POLITICS AND LIBERATION

The State of Israel has launched a campaign to recruit Jewish-Israeli and international gays and lesbians into the Zionist project. Tel Aviv has become a gay h(e)aven, and Israel a “beacon of freedom” because of its gay rights standards in comparison to “the rest of the Middle East.” However, underneath Tel Aviv’s sandy and gay friendly beaches lies a history of expulsion, ongoing occupation and apartheid. The obliteration of Palestinian lands and bodies through Israel’s promotion of “gay equality” as the final feature of the human rights project is called Pinkwashing.

By promoting gay rights as the endpoint of human rights, Israel obscures not only its obliteration of Palestine, but simultaneously silences queer voices who argue that their liberation is always already bound up with the liberation from any form of oppression. Palestinian and international (queer) activists argue that to achieve a radical equality queer politics has to be intrinsically anti-racist, anti-occupation, anti-sexist, and anti-classist.

In this panel, different speakers will talk about pinkwashing, queer politics, and Palestinian liberation. In conjunction, they will share their views on the use of sexuality in a larger context of Islamophobia, imperialism, neoliberalism, globalization, and settler-colonialism.

We invite the audience to participate in a discussion on the ties that bind queer liberation to Palestinian liberation, and join in the struggle for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, and against Pinkwashing.

SPEAKERS

HANEEN MAIKEY (ALQAWS: FOR SEXUAL AND GENDER DIVERSITY IN PALESTINIAN SOCIETY, PQBDS, JERUSALEM, PALESTINE)

DEAN SPADE (SEATTLE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, USA)

LYNN DARWICH (BEIRUT, LEBANON)

To watch Lynn’s video, write to lynn.darwich[at]gmail.com.

GINA DENT (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ, USA)

MODERATOR
Tamsila Tauqir (Safra Project, UK)

kawrage:

Not long after viewing (I use the term loosely) the trailer of Michael Lucas’ upcoming homonationalist pinkwashed documentary, I read (I use the term even more loosely here) his op-ed on his trip to Tunisia. 

It didn’t stray from the usual message: they dress like us, they drink like us, they should become like us. And (unlike us) they thrived under a dictator.

Of course he isn’t the first person to argue that the Arab uprisings have been detrimental to the rights of gays, but in the backdrop of the video, it was all the more aggravating

Loathe: (v.) to feel intense hatred or disgust towards something.

جدلية: الحركة المثلية في فلسطين ومقارعة الخطاب الإسرائيلي

On Saturday 1 December, at the final general assembly of the World Social Forum: Free Palestine — the first time this annual gathering of the global justice movement had devoted a special Forum to the cause of Palestine — the Queer Visions delegation presented a statement targeting pinkwashing.

The Queer Visions group included sixteen activists from seven cities internationally. We gathered in Porto Alegre prior to the World Social Forum through an initiative of Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (PQBDS), alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society (alQaws) and Pinkwatching Israel to network, strategize and trade tactics with this larger global movement. Selma Al-Aswad, a Palestinian activist from Seattle, read out our statement. We were met with overwhelming support from the crowd of hundreds of international activists.

It was a fitting end to a tumultuous three days. The struggle for Palestinian liberation felt more pressing than ever, following Israel’s most recent vote-getting war against Gaza, resulting in 150+ deaths. Also on everyone’s mind at the WSF was the UN vote to recognize Palestine as a non-member observer state and now Israel’s announcement of new settlement plans that will chop the West Bank in half.

We felt the successes of the movement in Porto Alegre too, especially when Stevie Wonder called off his concert celebrating the IDF, stating that as a UN Messenger of Peace, “I have always been against war, any war, everywhere.”

Queer Visions presented two public panels to the Forum, addressing queer activism, Palestine solidarity and anti-pinkwashing. Haneen Maikey, director of alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society (a group of LGBTQ activists who work to challenge gender and sexual hierarchy in Palestinian society) and co-founder of PQBDS, outlined key moments in a queer narrative of resistance, beginning with the first intifada, and tracking activism through the work of alQaws, the formation of PQBDS, the varied alliances with global queer anti-apartheid groups such as QuAIA (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto), and the launch of the www.pinkwatchingisrael.com website as an online hub and network for queer BDS activism.

Dean Spade showed how the twin planks of gay marriage and gays in the military are central to pinkwashing in both the US and Israel, while Gina Dent argued that we should remap paradigms of solidarity along south-south lines that recognize new geographies of common cause in a post-Katrina era. Lynn Darwich outlined the particular strategies that the Beirut-based group Meem has used in Lebanon to evolve from a focus on support/identity to activism. 

The second panel was a remarkable cross-generational conversation about specific local boycott campaigns and strategies, involving Ramzy Kumsieh (PQBDS/Queeristan), Natalie Kouri-Towe (QuAIA), Mikki Stelder, Sarah Colborne (Palestine Solidarity Campaign), Angela Davis and Selma Dillsi. All six gave talks that highlighted feminist and anti-racist analysis, where engagement with the Palestine liberation struggle was tied to forthright opposition to settler colonialism and imperialism.

Ramzy Kumsieh traced Pinkwatching and PQBDS’s decision to join the boycott movement back to political organizing within alQaws, Palestine’s queer rights organization. Natalie Kouri-Towe outlined the history of the annual (and unsuccessful) attempts by pro-Israel lobbyists to ban QuAIA from marching in Toronto’s Pride parade, while Selma Al-Aswad  presented a case study of a campaign that successfully cancelled the Seattle/Olympia portion of a state-sponsored pinkwashing tour of Israeli LGBT groups.

Sarah Colborne, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain, traced queer contributions to the Palestine solidarity movement (often behind the scenes) back through several decades.

Angela Davis, one of the most inspiring beacons of committed grassroots activism and rigorous critical engagement, spoke with passion of the necessity to connect struggles and build bridges, and concluded with the words of poet/activist June Jordan: “I was born a Black woman / and now / I am become a Palestinian.”

John Greyson is an award-winning Canadian filmmaker who is active in the global movement in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. 

For more information visit the website of Pinkwatching Israel. 

———-

h/t: Kawrage

Just saw a trailer for a “documentary” by porn producer Michael Lucas that pretty much defines homonationalism and “Israeli” pinkwashing.