Israel and ‘Pinkwashing’

[shira]

<snip>

The growing global gay movement against the Israeli occupation has named these tactics “pinkwashing”: a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life. Aeyal Gross, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, argues that “gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,”....”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/opinion/pinkwashing-and-israels-use-of-gays-as-a-messaging-tool.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Demonization at the NY Times, 2011. Yes of course, Israel only does good things (gay rights, field hospitals in Haiti, charities, etc.) for PR, to conceal their evil crimes against Palestinians. Israel can do nothing right without having evil intent. This is pure hate and bigotry.

More context: Here's the author of this NYT article with the leader of the BDS movement against Israel...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdpOWcvhKec&feature=player_embedded#!

[shira]

1. Worse, the author portrays the 'victimized' Palestinian society as more tolerant and liberal...

From the NYT OPED:

Pinkwashing not only manipulates the hard-won gains of Israel’s gay community, but it also ignores the existence of Palestinian gay-rights organizations. Homosexuality has been decriminalized in the West Bank since the 1950s, when anti-sodomy laws imposed under British colonial influence were removed from the Jordanian penal code, which Palestinians follow. More important is the emerging Palestinian gay movement with three major organizations: Aswat, Al Qaws and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. These groups are clear that the oppression of Palestinians crosses the boundary of sexuality; as Haneen Maikay, the director of Al Qaws, has said, “When you go through a checkpoint it does not matter what the sexuality of the soldier is.”

The author portrays Palestinian society as tolerant and liberal depite being refuted by one of the links she provides in the article...

http://www.aswatgroup.org/content/members

Most of Aswat members are "closeted" to some extent. Consequently, only one or two members can go public and identify themselves as Aswat members in our activities involving a certain amount of exposure i.e., advocacy & outreach, education etc. The 'closet' is an outcome of a homophobic and patriarchal society which has an undeniable impact on Aswat activities. Yet, group members develop different strategies in order to participate in various activities. For example, some members use nicknames when presenting themselves or reaching out to other community members, while others choose to promote activities which allow a reasonable degree of anonymity such as translations, Committee meetings, virtual support to others, information gathering, fundraising tasks etc. Thus, due to personal safety considerations, Aswat members have requested their names not to be disclosed.

That fear doesn't exist in Israel, but reality is inverted in this NYT article in order to portray Palestine the victim (as it must always be portrayed) as being more liberal and tolerant than it is, while Israel (the evil oppressor) is only liberal and tolerant for nefarious PR purposes.

This is pure hateful bigotry masquerading as liberal/progressive analysis.