{"id":3471,"date":"2011-11-06T10:21:33","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T09:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/?p=3471"},"modified":"2011-11-06T10:22:50","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T09:22:50","slug":"pinkwashing-deconstructed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/11\/06\/pinkwashing-deconstructed\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pinkwashing\u2019 Deconstructed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"tweet_button94\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/11\/06\/pinkwashing-deconstructed\/\" data-text=\"\u2018Pinkwashing\u2019 Deconstructed - Ray Cook - As I See It\" data-count=\"horizontal\" data-lang=\"en\" data-via=\"tweetbutton\"  data-related=\"coderplus:Wordpress Tips and more.\"><\/a><\/div><p><em>This is a superb guest post by Scott Piro (@ScottPiro)\u00a0\u00a0which exposes the utter hypocrisy of the \u00a0&#8216;pink-washing&#8217; slur on Israel. (RC)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In 2007, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated a nation-branding campaign informally known as \u2018Beyond the Conflict.\u2019 The goal was to change people\u2019s perception of Israel from a war zone populated by the ultra-religious into a more normal place \u2013 rich with culture, dominated by high-tech and scientific achievement and grounded in identifiable, Western values.<\/p>\n<p>American nonprofit organizations joined the effort by making sure non-conflict stories saw the light of day \u2013 everything from Israeli companies being listed on the NASDAQ and Israeli-made computer chips powering everyday products, to stories about Tel Aviv\u2019s nightlife and Israeli model Bar Rafaeli gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated\u2019s Swimsuit Issue.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nation_branding\" target=\"_blank\">Nation-branding<\/a> is practiced by many states, from established democracies like the U.S., Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, South Africa and New Zealand to developing countries like Tanzania, Colombia and Guatemala. It\u2019s not unique to Israel.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the cultural and technology stories, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs sought ways to emphasize Israeli values. Israel\u2019s record on LGBT rights was smartly identified as a way to highlight its societal tolerance and diversity, and draw contrast with more repressive regimes in the region and around the world. In reality, Israel is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SupportIsraelLGBT?sk=app_10442206389\" target=\"_blank\">only Middle Eastern country<\/a> where people are not persecuted because of their sexual or gender identity. Here are the facts for LGBTs in Israel:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0Anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTs<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Recognition of same-sex marriages performed abroad<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Legalized LGBT adoption rights<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0LGBT soldiers serve openly in all military branches, including special units; discrimination is prohibited<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0Same-sex couples have the same inheritance rights as heterosexual, married couples<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>LGBTs enjoy these rights nowhere else in the Middle East. In fact, every other Middle Eastern country makes homosexuality a crime punishable by death (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen) or jail time (Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Algeria), or LGBTs face risks of violence, torture and \u201chonor killings\u201d by militias or their own families (the West Bank, Iraq, Turkey) or harassment and crackdowns from the government and non-state actors (Bahrain, Jordan). In fact, when compared to states outside the region \u2013 including most Western democracies \u2013 Israel has one of the strongest records for LGBT rights in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s enemies recognized how favorable this record was for Israel, and that it threatened their efforts to demonize the Jewish state. So they shrewdly maneuvered to use it against her, and link promotion of Israel\u2019s LGBT record to the conflict in the West Bank and Gaza \u2013 even though there is none. <strong>The idea that the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs\u2019 campaign is part of a diabolical scheme to cover up abuses of \u2018the occupation\u2019 is completely anti-Israel queer activists\u2019 invention; it is their great lie.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Beginning in Toronto in 2008, and later in San Francisco and New York, LGBT anti-Israel groups formed and sought to make being anti-Israel a queer value. Some of these activists are anti-Semitic \u2013 whether or not they admit it, even to themselves. The frustrating thing is that many more of them work to brand Israel an \u2018<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/11\/01\/opinion\/israel-and-the-apartheid-slander.html\" target=\"_blank\">apartheid state<\/a>\u2019 for <em>all the right reasons<\/em>. They are being manipulated by the combination of <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/fact-check-abbas-presents-disputed-narrative-202352829.html\" target=\"_blank\">deceptive<\/a> Palestinian leadership, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/HonestReporting\/defending-israel-against-claims-of-excessive-force?player=js\" target=\"_blank\">biased<\/a> Western media and anti-Semites into believing a counterfeit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=j1N1zhUm84w\" target=\"_blank\">narrative<\/a> where Israelis are the aggressors and Palestinians are her ultimate victims. It exploits LGBTs\u2019 natural empathy for the oppressed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=LeGYAfh9A1k&amp;feature=uploademail\" target=\"_blank\">Activists<\/a> who claim to not hate Israel and say they support her right to exist, yet still accuse her of brutal oppression and apartheid, are complicit in preventing a peace deal, propagating terror, and endangering Jews and the State of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>The sad reality is that LGBT anti-Israel groups are throwing our queer Palestinian brothers and sisters under the bus. LGBT persecution in the disputed territories is horrendous \u2013 it comes from Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, militias and even the victims\u2019 own families. In the academic report &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.tau.ac.il\/heb\/_Uploads\/dbsAttachedFiles\/NowheretoRun.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Nowhere to Run: Gay Palestinian Asylum Seekers in Israel<\/a>,&#8221; there is testimony from Palestinian LGBTs who escaped to Israel to seek asylum status. The torture they received in the West Bank is shocking (pages 13-17). For example, one man recounts a horror story of being dragged from his home by PA officers because he was gay, then submerged in sewage water up to his neck for five hours at a time, every day for three weeks (pg. 15). The report comes from Tel Aviv University\u2019s Public Interest Law Program, but it shouldn\u2019t be dismissed for that reason; it&#8217;s critical of Israel for not accepting more LGBT Palestinian refugees.<\/p>\n<p>Once peace comes and the IDF pulls out of the West Bank, Palestinian queers will be much worse off. Palestinian LGBT testimony confirms this is what happened when the PA took over Gaza in 2005 (pg. 10). <a href=\"http:\/\/www.advocate.com\/Politics\/Commentary\/Op_ed_A_New_State_for_Homophobia\/\" target=\"_blank\">Eighty-two percent<\/a> of Palestinians support making homosexuality illegal. Many more queers will die in Palestine once a state is achieved. I am not advocating for the status quo, but I do believe energy from queer anti-Israel activists would be better spent educating straight Palestinians not to kill their LGBT brothers and sisters once Israelis leave, instead of vilifying Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in the region, Iran executed three men in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2011\/09\/06\/gay-men-hanged_n_951162.html\" target=\"_blank\">September, 2011<\/a> for being gay (and two in 2005). The Assad regime in Syria has now murdered over 3,000 of its own people. And Palestinians in Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian refugee camps face conditions much more akin to apartheid than anything experienced within Israel (where they are citizens with the same rights as Jewish Israelis) or the disputed territories (where they are governed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas). Yet where are the Queers Against Iranian Persecution, Queers Against Syrian Torture and Queers Against Lebanese Apartheid groups?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Palestine is a queer issue,&#8221; Israel&#8217;s LGBT critics insist. But Iranian torture and execution of LGBTs is not a queer issue? Syrian brutality against its own people is not a queer issue? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/Opinion\/EditorialOpinion\/article\/832423\" target=\"_blank\">Lebanese<\/a> apartheid against Palestinians is not also a queer issue? Why not?<\/p>\n<p>The fact that no LGBT groups protest any of these human rights abuses, but we see a proliferation of queer groups against Israel, meets one of the key criteria in Alan Dershowitz&#8217;s list of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/alan-dershowitz\/when-legit-criticism-cros_b_3524.html\" target=\"_blank\">factors that tend to indicate anti-Semitism<\/a>&#8220;: &#8220;Singling out only Israel for sanctions for policies that are widespread among other nations, or demanding that Jews be better or more moral than others because of their history as victims.&#8221; The rest of Dershowitz&#8217;s list is worth reading, and he contrasts it to &#8220;factors that tend to indicate legitimate criticism of Israel.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Also worth reading is this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thejc.com\/news\/uk-news\/55250\/dr-denis-maceoins-letter-edinburgh-university-students-association\" target=\"_blank\">letter<\/a> from Senior Editor of Middle East Quarterly, former professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and non-Jew Dr. Denis MacEoin: &#8220;It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death&#8230;Thinking it&#8217;s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, some of Israel&#8217;s loudest queer critics are Palestinian LGBT <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/alQaws\" target=\"_blank\">organizations<\/a>. How can this be true, given the documented atrocities LGBTs face from their own government and families inside the Palestinian territories? Perhaps they are looking to gain respect from homophobic, straight Palestinian organizations by bashing Israel, so that conditions for LGBTs inside the future Palestinian state will not meet the worst case scenario. How\u2019s this for hypocrisy &#8211; do you know where the Palestinian queer group alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society held their \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=259000297485340&amp;set=a.192747804110590.61250.174526532599384&amp;type=3&amp;theater\" target=\"_blank\">Palestinian Queer Party<\/a>\u201d on October 21, 2011? At a Tel Aviv club! Was the reason because it\u2019s not safe for LGBTs to congregate inside a public place in the West Bank at a pre-announced time and place?<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s queer enemies can hurl \u2018Pinkwashing!\u2019 claims at her all they want. I, for one, celebrate the fact that the Israel\u2019s government is proud enough of its LGBT rights record to use it for nation-branding. What would happen if the governments of Libya, Iran, Palestine and Syria bragged about their LGBT rights records, too? It would mean more LGBTs around the world would be protected and safe.<\/p>\n<p>Israel&#8217;s queer foes are the real pinkwashers, because they conveniently ignore the horrors committed against LGBTs throughout the Middle East in order to focus only on the Jewish state. If the term &#8220;pinkwashing&#8221; is about covering up facts to push one&#8217;s agenda, then anti-Israel queer activists are choking on their own hypocrisy and self-righteousness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"tweet_button94\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" rel=\"nofollow\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/11\/06\/pinkwashing-deconstructed\/\" data-text=\"\u2018Pinkwashing\u2019 Deconstructed - Ray Cook - As I See It\" data-count=\"horizontal\" data-lang=\"en\" data-via=\"tweetbutton\"  data-related=\"coderplus:Wordpress Tips and more.\"><\/a><\/div><p>This is a superb guest post by Scott Piro (@ScottPiro)\u00a0\u00a0which exposes the utter hypocrisy of the \u00a0&#8216;pink-washing&#8217; slur on Israel. (RC) In 2007, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated a nation-branding campaign informally known as \u2018Beyond the Conflict.\u2019 The goal was to change people\u2019s perception of Israel from a war zone populated by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,223,19],"tags":[752,4,995,201,994],"class_list":["post-3471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel-and-accusations-of-racism-and-apartheid","category-israel-palestine","category-the-delegitimisation-of-israel","tag-gay-rights","tag-israel","tag-lgbt","tag-palestine","tag-pink-washing","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3471"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3473,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3471\/revisions\/3473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}