How Israeli PR uses the language of gay rights to appeal to western liberals, and "pinkwash" over the state's ongoing human rights abuses in Palestine.

2. No Pride In ApartheidHow LGBT* Rights in Israel are Used to Mask Human Rights Abuses in Palestine

4. • 725,000 Palestinians made refugees by the founding of Israel.
• More than 438,000 Israeli settlers living in 129 settlements in
occupied West Bank
-Land costs for settlers subsidized 69% by Israeli government
• Inequality of movement:
-522 Checkpoints restricting Palestinian movement in West Bank
-4 of 5 roads to Jordan valley restricted from Palestinians
-Only 4 of 16 checkpoints into East Jerusalem open to Palestinians.
-200,000 Palestinians have to take roads 2-5 times longer than
settlers.
• 87% of water from the Mountain Aquifer in West Bank directed to
State of Israel and Jewish West Bank settlers.
• 709km Separation Wall built dividing Israel from West Bank, often
inside the border.
Occupation: Fast Facts

5. Occupation: Fast Facts
• More than 50 Israeli laws creating inequalities between Jewish
Israelis and others.
• Siege and blockade of Gaza - restrictions on imports, fishing,
farming create deliberate shortages and unemployment.
• “Mowing the Lawn” - frequent attacks on Gaza to maintain state
of disruption. Operation Protective Edge in 2014 killed more than
2000 Palestinians.

7. Israel: Gay Oasis
• https://
www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ftIzxrmTBhQ

8. Pinkwashing
•Pinkwashing:
a variety of marketing and political
strategies aimed at promoting a
product or an entity through an
appeal to queer-friendliness.

10. Brand Israel Campaign (1)
• (Re)Brand Israel: An official Israeli PR
campaign started in 2005 with the goal of
re-branding Israel as a place associated
with research, technology, art, culture, gay
rights, women’s rights, and progressive
values, rather than conflict, occupation,
repression and war.
• The target audience for this campaign is the
international community in the hopes that
it will generate popular support for Israel
worldwide.
• 2007- Brand Israel Campaign is launched.
$4m for office, $3m for Hasbara, $11m for
tourism ministry North America

11. Brand Israel Campaign (2)
• “Rebranding a country can take 20 years or more. It involves
more than just generating more positive stories about Israel.
The process has to be internalized and integrated, too.
Israelis must share in and believe in what we promote.” -
David Saranga, of the Consulate General of Israel
• Gideon Meir of Israel’s Foreign Ministry told Haaretz that he
would “rather have a Style section item on Israel than a front
page story.”
• 2009- International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association
announced an October Conference in Tel Aviv with the goal
of promoting Israel as a “world gay destination.”
• 2010- Israeli government spends $94 million promoting gay
tourism.

13. If size doesn't matter, maybe
stop stealing Palestinian land?

14. Pinkwashing Israel
• Pinkwashing is the cynical use of LGBT rights and queer voices to
obscure Israeli human rights violations
• Pinkwashing portrays Israel as a haven for gays in the Middle East,
while demonizing surrounding countries and societies
• Pinkwashing strives to replace social justice as the measure of a
progressive society with a myopic vision of identity-based gay rights
• Pinkwashing provides ideological cover and explicit support for
Israeli militarism and occupation
• Pinkwashing allows for the internal suppression and increased
profiling of Palestinian communities seen as tied to Palestinian
“terrorists”
• Homonationalism, using pinkwashing, denies the possibility, that
someone could be both Palestinian and queer at the same time.

15. Pinkwashing is Not About LGBT Rights
• Pinkwashing tries to portray Israel as progressive and
civilized because it treats gay people well, therefore all
its other human rights violations can be swept under the
rug.
• Israel is not building a wall around an entire country to
make a safe space for queers. Rights are only privileges
for some Israelis if basic rights are denied to Palestinians.
• Pinkwashing is a diversion tactic. Fighting pinkwashing
is not a distraction from LGBT right struggles- it
prevents the use of LGBT struggles to oppress others.
• ALL Palestinians -queer and straight, trans and cis-
suffer daily from Israeli occupation.

17. Politician’s comments
“Israel was fighting for gay
rights before the 1967 war.
Even when terrorists were
blowing up our buses and
cafes, there was equality
for gays.”
- Michael Oren, US
Ambassador to Israel, 2012

20. Tactic: Gain Worldwide Support from
Queer Communities
• By presenting Israel as a haven for
gays in a hostile region, the
campaign to re-brand Israel hopes
to gain the support of queers and
their governments worldwide.
• The campaign recognizes that
many queers may be sympathetic
to the Palestinian cause, and aims
to sway sympathies to the Israeli
side.
• Hoax video about “Marc,” a
supposed gay American activist,
denied participation due to his
sexuality. The video was spread by
the Israeli Government.
By portraying Palestinians and their supporters as homophobic
and linked to terrorism, this video hopes to draw support away
from pro-Palestinian activism as well as a pro-Palestine
viewpoint. This tactic, in effect, makes being pro-Palestinian
the same as being anti-gay, thus de-legitimizing queer pro-
Palestinian activists as self-hating.

21. The Invisible Men (2012)
Consequences of Pinkwashing
• Queer Palestinians are excluded
from national forms of belonging
and citizenship
• Queer Palestinians are framed as
either the victim, the exotic, or the
monster/terrorist (all three are
represented in Eytan Foxs film The
Bubble), but they are never
presented as having agency.
• Enforcing and re-establishing the
incorrect image of homosexuality as
a western issue

22. The State of LGBT Issues in Israel
• Decriminalized homosexuality in 1988
• LGBT people are not banned from military service
• Large LGBT parade, queer scene in Tel Aviv.
• Outside sections of Tel Aviv, more conservative. Jerusalem Pride Parade has had
incidents of ultra-orthodox Jews attacking marchers.
• Israeli LGBT groups have made important progress and the struggle continues.
Tourist information from Orbitz.com:
Your Gay Israel Vacation
Tel Aviv appears more like a mirage of Miami than a city in the Middle East. This modern, robust city (nary an ancient wall in sight) is
brimming with surfers, men in Speedos, girls in thongs, and restaurants in the sand. Tel Aviv is home to gay saunas and gay beaches, a
happening lesbian scene, and LGBT clubs that pump until dawn. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Israel over twenty years ago, and
the Israeli tourism board even produces gay TV ads, but don’t expect a robust gay life outside of Tel Aviv. Regardless, explore just two or
three hours out of the city and you’ll be rewarded with 5,000 years of human history in mesmerizing (if conservative) Jerusalem....
Insider tips:
Don’t expect much a gay scene outside of Tel Aviv
Despite Tel Aviv’s brashness, the rest of rural Israel is a bit conservative (particularly Jerusalem). Although holding your partner’s hand is
fine in Tel Aviv, personal displays of affection are frowned upon in other parts of the country.

23. Palestinian LGBT Struggles
“Queers were here”
Ramallah, Palestine

24. Palestinian LGBT Struggles
• “Because the world hasn't forced the P.A. to
tolerate gays, Palestinian homosexuals are
increasingly seeking refuge in the only regional
territory that does: Israel.”
-Yossi Klein Halevi, The New Republic, 2002

26. Gay Oasis?
• Estimated 2000 queer Palestinians living in Tel Aviv at
any time, according to The Agudah (Israeli LGBT
organization).
• However, there is no pink door in the apartheid wall.
• Number of Palestinian refugees accepted by Israel:
Queer: 0
Transgender: 0
Heterosexual: 0
Cisgender: 0
• Israel creates refugees out of Palestinians rather than
welcoming them.

27. Palestinian LGBT Struggles
• Queer and trans people living in the West
Bank and Gaza face daily military violence
just for being who they are: Palestinian.
• No laws against homosexuality in West
Bank, no legal protections either. Male
homosexuality is illegal in Gaza due to a
1937 British Mandate law.
• Face multiple oppressions for being queer/
trans plus living under Israeli occupation.
• Palestinian LGBT advocacy groups formed
following the Second Intifada: al-Qaws;
ASWAT; Palestinian Queers for BDS

28. Homophobia Supports the Occupation
• Israeli security forces seek to identify
closeted queer and trans Palestinians.
• By threatening to out them, queer and
trans Palestinians are coerced into
becoming informants for Israeli security.
• This in turn supports a homophobic
belief that LGBT people are
collaborators with Israel and/or traitors.

29. The Occupation Supports Homophobia
• There is not a square foot on earth where a
queer Palestinian Israeli citizen, queer
Palestinian from the West Bank, Gaza, and a
queer Palestinian refugee can meet.
• LGBT rights are won through struggle alone.
Apartheid suffocates Palestinian activists.
• Queer Palestinians are oppressed by Israel as
Palestinians, not just as queers. We cannot
choose to support them as queers, but not as
Palestinians or vice versa.

30. Queer Solidarity with Palestine Works
John Greyson
Judith Butler
Queer Solidarity vs
South African Apartheid
worked
QuAIA Toronto

31. How to Support Palestine
• Individually:
Learn to notice pinkwashing: the first step to being able to
fight it is being able to recognize it
• Call it out: explain pinkwashing to others and ask them for
their support in resisting it
• Refuse to participate in pinkwashing: don‟t work with
organizations complicit in pinkwashing.
• Collectively
Hold events about pinkwashing in your community event.
• Join groups dedicated to supporting BDS
• Start a new group!

32. Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions
• It is a civil society call, endorsed by more than 170 groups organizations and
unions.
• A well-constructed way of resistance: non violent , defined, clear strategies
• Historically it worked to end the apartheid in South Africa and it’s gaining more
and more momentum.
• Ideologies & strategies like: peace process, negotiations, co-existence are
irrelevant and factually didn’t change the reality for the last 63 years.
• Only international economical, academic, and cultural pressure can be effective
This is a well-established method of non-violent resistance. The struggle
against pinkwashing is part of the struggle against Israeli occupation, and
BDS is one of the most widespread and organized means of resisting
Israeli occupation.
Why BDS?

33. More Resources
• Facebook group: Halifax
Queers Against Israeli
Apartheid
• Queers Against Israeli
Apartheid Toronto
• Pinkwatching Israel
• Salaam - Queer Muslim
Support Group
• al-Qaws
• Aswat, Palestinian Gay Women
• Palestinian Queers for BDS
• Jaddaliya
• Al Jazeera English
• Haaretz
• Mondoweiss
• Electronic Intifada
• +972mag
Organizations News & Analysis Authors
• Jasbir Puar
• Judith Butler
• Maya Mikdashi
• Sara Shulman