2. History of the Occupation
• 1948 The Nakba, or Catastrophe, in which
Palestinians were driven off their land and
from their homes, often violently. This led to
the establishment of the State of Israel, and to
the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian
refugees, a number that today has grown to
4.7 million
• 1967 Six Day War in which Israel occupied
the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai, and Golan
Heights.
• 1987-1993 First Intifada, or uprising, of the
Palestinian people against Israeli occupation.
A mass mobilization of Palestinian
men, women, and children that involved many
forms of civil disobedience and resistance.
• 1994-1995 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian
Authority becomes responsible for the
administration of some social, legal, and
political facets of Palestinian life. The
construction on the wall dividing Israel from
the West Bank begins.
3. • 2000-2004 Second Intifada. In response to
Ariel Sharon‟s provocative visit to the
Temple Mount, large Palestinian protests
occurred in Jerusalem.The shooting by
Israeli soldiers of 6 unarmed protesters led
to demonstrations and clashes across the
occupied territories, which were violently
suppressed by the Israel Defense Forces.
• 2006 Israel wages a 33-day war against
Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, responding
to rocket fire with bombings of Lebanese
towns, villages, and infrastructure.
• 2008-2009 Gaza War/Operation Cast Lead.
Israel, without warning, begins bombing
Gaza with the stated objective of ending
rocket attacks from the region. In only 22
days, large areas of Gaza were destroyed
and 1,400 Palestinians were killed.
4. Conditions of Palestinians
• Palestinians living in the West Bank live
under Israeli occupation. Their movements
are controlled and monitored by hundreds of
Israeli checkpoints and obstructions
throughout the West Bank.
• Palestinian homes and communities are
subject to Israeli military presence,
especially in regions where there are also
Israeli settlements.
• Palestinian communities and families are
divided by the Israeli apartheid wall which
surrounds the West Bank.
5. • Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East
Jerusalem face the threat of home demolitions
for „building without a permit‟ (which includes any
kind of addition or renovation to an existing
home) even though these permits are next to
impossible for Palestinians to acquire.
• Even Palestinians living legally in Israel face
discrimination from at least 70 Israeli laws. This
is part of a system of institutionalized
discrimination
• Residents of the Gaza Strip are blockaded by
Israel on all sides, severely limiting their
movement and access to goods and services.
The residents of Gaza essentially live in an
open-air, Israeli-controlled prison.
6. Currently:
• 61.8% percent of the wall has been completed
(when finished, only 15% of the wall will be
located on the Green Line or in Israel).
• Israel has established 121 official settlements
and about 100 unofficial outposts. Settlements
continue to be constructed, although they are
illegal according to international law.
• Israel has built 232 km of roads in the West
Bank that are for the sole use of Israelis, and
they have established 99 fixed checkpoints that
restrict and monitor the movement of
Palestinians.
7. Pinkwashing in a Nutshell
• Pinkwashing is the cynical use of gay 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 an 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.
8. Brand Israel
• (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,
instead of conflict, occupation, repression,
and war.
• The target audience for this campaign is the
international community at large, in the
hopes that it will generate popular support
for Israel around the globe.
• In just its first two years, it had a government
provided budget of $4 million. This
campaign also receives additional funding
from outside organizations, corporations,
and individual donors.
9. "ISRAEL21c‟s mission is to focus media and
public attention on the 21st century Israel that
exists beyond the conflict. By
highlighting, emphasizing, and promoting
• In addition to the Brand Israel positive images of Israel and Israelis, people
campaign, there are various will come to view Israelis as more like
organizations, predominantly in the themselves and understand the relevance of
United States, that utilize many of the Israel to their own lives.
same tactics with the same goals in
mind. ISRAEL21c‟s operations are focused on the
development and dissemination of content that
is used to advance the mission. The outcome
• Pinkwashing is a chief tactic of Brand
of this process is increased support for Israel
Israel.
during difficult times and a greater
appreciation of the role that Israel has in the
lives of people the world over.“
ISRAEL21c.com, “About Us”
10. Pinkwashing is not an accident
Pinkwashing is: “… this path of liberty is not paved by
elections alone. It‟s paved when
governments permit protests in town
• Promoted by a well-organized, well-funded squares, when limits are placed on the
public relations campaign started by the powers of rulers, when judges are
Israeli government. beholden to laws and not men, and when
human rights cannot be crushed by tribal
• However, it extends beyond Israeli loyalties or mob rule. Israel has always
governmental efforts and into private embraced this path in a Middle East that
organizations such as Stand With Us and has long rejected it. In a region where
The Anti-Defamation League as well as women are stoned, gays are
individuals who promote its principles and hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel
use its tactics. stands out. It is different.”
• A blatant appropriation of gay voices and Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the U.S.
the gay rights struggle for obscuring the Congress [May 2011]
crimes of the Israeli state
11. Pinkwashing is not
about gay rights
• Pinkwashing tries to portray Israel as progressive and
civilized because it treats gays well, therefore all its other
human rights violations can be swept under the rug.
• Pinkwashing is about Israel using gay rights as a
diversion. Fighting pinkwashing is not a detraction from
the gay rights struggle-- rather, stopping pinkwashing
prevents the use of the gay rights struggle to oppress
others.
• Israel presents itself as a bastion of gay rights, but how
can these be true „gay rights‟ if they are applied selectively
to some in Israeli society, while many basic human rights,
including gay rights, are denied to Palestinians by Israel?
• ALL Palestinians, gay, straight, or otherwise suffer daily
from Israeli discrimination, occupation, control, and human
rights violations. Israel makes no exceptions for queer
Palestinians.
12. Pinkwashing Tactics
1. Vilifying surrounding Arab and Muslim
countries, painting them as
barbaric, uncivilized, and brutal, while portraying
Israel as a diverse haven for homosexuals
around the world.
• Shifting the standard by which a civilized society is
measured from human rights to gay rights.
• Condemnation of Arab countries as a whole as
barbaric and backwards. Israel wants people to
overlook its numerous human rights violations, and
the fact that all Palestinians face
discrimination, occupation, or persecution by the
Israeli government on a daily basis.
• This framing overlooks the fact that it is legally
impossible for a queer Palestinian living in the West
Bank or Gaza to seek asylum in Israel, and that
even within Israel, there are no equal rights for
Palestinian citizens or residents.
13. 2. Attempting to gain worldwide support
from the ‘queer community
• By presenting Israel as a haven for gays in
an otherwise 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,
especially in the West, may be sympathetic
By portraying Palestinians and those who
to the Palestinian cause, and aims to sway
support them as homophobic and linked to
their sympathies to the Israeli side.
terrorism, this video not only hopes to draw
support away from pro-Palestinian
• Example: Hoax video about „Marc,‟ the activism, but also from a pro-Palestinian
supposed gay American activist, denied viewpoint. This tactic, in effect, makes being
participation in the Second Gaza Flotilla due pro-Palestinian the same as being anti-
to his sexuality. The video was later found to gay, thus de-legitimizing queer pro-Palestinian
have been spread by the Israeli government. activists as self-hating.
14. 3. Promoting gay tourism using
sexism, priviliges and
consumerism
• Building on the queer-friendly
image Israel is trying to create,
the Ministry of Tourism is
promoting Israel as a haven for
queers (especially gay men) to
vacation and be accepted for
their sexuality.
The government-run website gayisrael.org uses lines like
„our beaches are the hottest and the friendliest in the Middle
East.‟ This ties in strongly with sexism and consumerism
through the promotion of a consumption-driven experience
(i.e. expensive drinks served at gay bars or gay clubs) as
well as exoticization and fetishization such as “This Dashing
piece of gay heaven holds within the perfect combination for
a perfect vacation for men and women: gorgeous guys
dancing at the hottest clubs, stunningly beautiful women
enjoying our pure shores, modern & contemporary art
galleries, cutting-edge fashion, local & international cuisine...
15. 4. Spotlighting Israeli gay culture and
consumerism internationally
• Around 2008, Brand Israel selected
cities including
Toronto, Tokyo, Boston, and London as
„pilot cities‟ for programs consisting of
pro-Israeli advertisements, events
highlighting Israeli products, film festivals
and other events promoting Israeli
culture.
• Groups based in North America have
„Out in Israel‟ LGBT Culture Festival that took
also been running pro-Israel
place in San Francisco in 2010. This event
advertisement campaigns, most notably
was partially sponsored by the Israeli
in public transportation hubs. This has
Consulate General to the Pacific
happened as recently as June-July 2011
Northwest, an official office of the government
in Chicago train stations. Advertisements
of Israel.
were also run in the San Francisco
public transit system by
standwithus.com.
16. 5. Appropriating the term Pinkwashing
• Some groups are taking the tactic of
pinkwashing a step further, not only
appropriating queer voices in order to
cover up Israeli human rights
violations, but also appropriating the
language used to counter these efforts.
• In this context, they have appropriated
the term pinkwashing itself to mean
'brainwashing' conducted by 'anti-Israel “...pro-Israel LGBTs needed to take this
hate groups' 'Pinkwashing' term and turn it against
our enemies. It would at once neutralize
• These posters were designed for Pride its harmful potential against Israel and
2011 in New York and Toronto, though it put our attackers on the defensive.
is unclear which group or groups They've done something really brilliant:
created the first image. The other two instead of using 'Pinkwashing' to be a
images in this album on the facebook clever spin on the term 'whitewashing,'
group „Queer Support for Israel‟ are they've co-opted it to mean
courtesy of Kulanu Toronto. BRAINWASHING. ”
Scott Piro,
http://www.facebook.com/
SupportIsraelLGBT
17. The 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 Fox's film The
Bubble), but they are never presented as
having agency.
• Enforcing and re-establishing the incorrect
image of homosexuality as a western issue
18. • Palestinian society is represented as
homophobic and backward, the opposite of
“democratic” and “modern” Israel.
• These representations legitimize the
occupation, which is framed as a necessary
securitization of the Israeli nation against the
intrusion of “backward” and “homophobic”
values “prevailing in the Middle East.”
• This legitimization of the occupation denies the
unequal power dynamics between Palestinians
and Israel, which enforces a state-led
occupation and apartheid.
19. Good Intentions and Complicity
• This slogan equates the illegal occupation of Free Palestine Rally, London, 2005.
Palestinian land with homophobia in Palestine, as if Slogan: “Israel stop persecuting Palestine!
they were the same types of violence. Palestine stop persecuting queers!“
• This slogan participates in the fantasy of securitization
and seems to imply that to be free, Palestinians first
need to stop being homophobic. It conflates an entire
population with homophobia and re-articulates the
image of Western exceptionalism.
• Homophobia is a phenomenon from which Israel and
other countries are of course not exempt.
• The discourse of homophobia is a Western one,
which imposes a singular strategy of visibility on
queer communities that is not necessarily suited to
their societies.
• This discourse divides the world into an overly
simplified duality of homophobe vs. LGBTQ people
and allies, ignoring the social and political context of
homophobia and its rootedness in larger structures of
sexual and gender discrimination.
20. Homonationalism
• Homonationalism describes the acceptance and
inclusion of some homosexuals in the nation-
state.
• A new “accepted” national gay citizen is created
at the expense of sexual and racial others, who
can never fully belong to the nation.
• National homosexuality is turned into a brand
that regulates who can be seen as a proper gay
citizen and reinforces sexual and racial
stereotypes, perpetuating the exclusion of entire
populations.
21. Principles of Homonationalism
Homonormativity:
• LGBT people—mainly white, middle class
patriotic consumers—copy the heteronormative
foundations of the nation, to which they now
have access at the expense of racial and sexual
others.
• This normativity relates to the copying of
heteronormative forms of kinship, an ascendency
of whiteness and the ability to spend money and
to travel. It is based on a pattern of sameness
with a twist, aimed at assimilation.
• Certain gay communities are turned into just
another niche in the neoliberal market, and their
participation in the market establishes them as
good national citizens, while other queer
communities are even more excluded from full
citizenship and belonging.
22. Principles of Homonationalism
Counterterrorism:
• The construction of the “proper” homonormative
LGBT person as an acceptable citizen of the
nation enables the construction of the terrorist as
a deviant queer always outside of the nation.
• Counterterrorism policies are legitimized by
disguising them as aimed at the protection of
human rights, specifically women's and gay
rights. Superficial concern for gay rights is used
to disguise other types of human rights
violations.
23. Principles of Homonationalism
Securitization:
• The exceptional image of nation-state now
includes some homosexuals, whose presence
legitimates the nation‟s call for enhanced
securitization.
• Securitization is directed against sexual and
racial others that are re-created as a threat to
society.
• This happens both inside and outside the
nation's borders.
• A racialized and sexualized discourse on security
underpins the nation‟s demands for enhanced
securitization against entire populations identified
with terrorism. Time Out: “You see here a threat,
we see here an opportunity”
24. Principles of Homonationalism
Exceptionalism:
• A nation engages with gay rights, or the liberal
jargon of gay emancipation in order to brand
itself as democratic, modern, tolerant and
diverse.
• It does not only brand the nation as exceptional
but is used to brand entire populations as
"barbaric" and "homophobic“, in contrast to the
exceptional nation.
• Sexual and racial others become indefinitely
foreign to the nation.
• The nation needs to protect itself against this
"otherness" that could potentially harm the
hetero/homonormative foundations of the nation.
25. Homonationalism in Practice
The Netherlands:
• Both left- and right-wing political
parties, including Geert Wilders and his
extreme right wing “Party for Freedom”,
(part of the Dutch government), use the
protection of gay rights as a justification
for their anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant
policies. Suddenly, being accepting of
queers comes to measure the level
democracy and freedom. This diverts
attention from the structural oppression
of minorities.
26. USA:
• The war in Iraq is partially legitimized by framing
Arab societies as homophobic. The USA
becomes the bringer of democracy because it
comes to “save” gay Iraqis.
• Don't Ask, Don't Tell: The struggle to allow
lesbian, gay, and bisexual people to serve openly
in the military was also the homonationalistic
struggle to allow them to prove their patriotism by
fighting Muslims who are depicted as sexist and
homophobic.
27. Israel:
• The increase of Israeli flags at gay
pride. The gay identity becomes
inseparable from Israeli nationality
which leads to the exclusion of
sexual and racial others.
• Nationalistic gay male porn, shot in
the ruins of old Palestinian villages,
underlining the exceptional status
of Israel: The triumph of gay rights
over the barbaric, homophobic
Arab society.
28. The increasing use of, and investment in social media supporting the interests of the Israeli state and
the occupation of Palestinians by pointing out the exceptionalism of Israel‟s “gay rights” in contrast to
the rest of the Middle East
29. Homonationalism in Israel is on the
rise:
• Supporters of homonationalism in
Israel re-articulate the claim that
criticizing state policies equals anti-
Semitism and an anti-gay agenda,
refuting the right of Palestinians to
self-determination, and obscuring
the distinction between Judaism
and Zionism.
• Gay emancipation goes hand in
hand with Israeli militarism and the
desire to openly serve in the IDF
• Jewish Israeli queers can only come
out as depoliticized Zionist queers.
30. How to Fight Pinkwashing
Intersections between struggles: Fighting for
the rights of oppressed and marginalized queer
minorities cannot be separated from fighting against all
forms of oppression, therefore, fighting for our “gay rights”
is not separate from our struggle against occupation
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
Judith Butler turns down the Civil
them for their support in resisting it Courage Award at Christopher
• Refuse to participate in pinkwashing: don‟t work with Street Day in Berlin. Radical queer
organizations complicit in pinkwashing groups had urged her to refuse the
award, because of the
racist, islamophobic and nationalist
Collectively: tendencies of the organizers of the
• Hold events about pinkwashing in your community event. The organizers laid these
claims aside by publicly stating
• Join groups dedicated to supporting BDS and "those people are not the majority
countering pinkwashing here‟
• Start a new group!
31. BDS- Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel.
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?
• 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
