The Return of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid
Only in Canada You Say? Definitely Not in Palestine
Students all over North America are competing to show just how ignorant and lawless they can be, as they rally in favour of the academic boycott of Israel. They are revealing yet again just how misleading the term pro-Palestine is. Nothing that students on University campuses are asking for or saying will stop one Israeli bullet or provide one bag of flour to the people of Gaza.
We are back today following our Passover pause with a new article by Fred Litwin. Fred’s previous article about the Saw gallery was well received and we think you will like today’s offering just as well.
Back in 2008, a uniquely Canadian invention – Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) – appeared in Gay Pride marches across the country. The gay activist group was formed after the 2008 Israeli Apartheid Week in Toronto, another Canadian innovation.
It’s all perplexing since Israel is a bastion of gay rights — with gays actively serving in the military, gay pride marches in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and state recognition of same-sex marriages. There is also an underground network to bring gay Palestinians living under threat to Israel.
You would think that all of this would make it hard to protest Israel, so QuAIA had to make up something, and settled on a complaint about “the use of gay rights as a propaganda tool to justify Israel’s apartheid policies.” A coalition was necessary “to fight against this appropriation.” Thus, QuAIA was born, and the term “pinkwashing,” entered the international anti-Zionist vocabulary.
Makes you kind of proud to be Canadian.
There were attempts to get Toronto Pride to eject QuAIA, but city manager Joe Pennachetti concluded in 2011 that QuAIA “was not promoting hatred or discrimination by waving banners using the term ‘Israeli Apartheid’ as it marched” through Toronto. In February of 2015, the group disbanded saying they wanted to “develop new strategies to support the Palestine solidarity movement.”
Are they now coming back?
Queers for Palestine is the new kid on the block with Canadian chapters in Toronto, Ottawa, and Winnipeg, and internationally in London, Vienna and Helsinki. The Toronto chapter has over 5,500 followers on Instagram.
The Ottawa group just concluded a “Queer Art market for Palestine.”
They also posted a second creative for the event:
And where else but the Saw Gallery. I am sure they will say they are just hosting and have nothing to do with the actual event.
“be proud productions” is the event planner (they/them):
In February, Queers for Palestine Ottawa gathered at the Human Rights monument to honour “all our martyrs.”
And on May 15th, they will be commemorating “Nakba” Day.
Right after that on May 16th, they will be having a film festival “to support and highlight a culture of Palestinian solidarity and activism.” One of the films is Sultana’s Reign which is a portrait of a Palestinian drag queen. Interestingly, Sultana could not come out as gay until the death of his Palestinian father. Another film, Homecoming Queenz, is about a “defiant Palestinian queen” who “confronts border guards at Ben Gurion airport. In this eleven-minute film two drag queens change into women’s clothes on their flight to Israel and then go through customs. They are then asked some pointed questions and it is clear that the Israeli customs people know quite a bit about these two agitators. It’s not clear they are even Palestinians.
I guess it is very brave to question customs agents, but I really wonder if that “defiant Palestinian queen” would ever confront Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
You need more than bravery to challenge the homophobia of Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.
Homosexuality is not tolerated in either place. A new website, Queers in Gaza, notes that “there is no transgender population in Gaza because any trans person who lives openly will be hunted down by Hamas.” In 2022 the PA banned a LGBT rights group from organizing any events in the West Bank saying that these activities are contrary to the “values of Palestinian society.”
In 2016, Hamas executed one of their own commanders, Mahmoud Ishtiwi, for being gay. Ishtiwi was commander of the Zietoun Brigade and had the rank in Hamas equivalent to that of a brigadier general in the IDF. He was 33 years old in 2015 when he was first accused of being gay. Men in Gaza who are thought to be gay are also usually accused of working with Israel. In this case, Ishtiwi was acquitted of collaborating, but he was whipped 400 – 500 times and he told his family he had been tortured for 1,200 hours.
The religious court in Gaza sentenced him to death saying that “Just as prostitution is considered an abomination and evil in every way, lying with a man should be judged at least the same as prostitution; in other words, death by stoning, especially when committed by someone in a sensitive position in the leadership of the Al-Qassam Brigades."
Documents confiscated by Israeli soldiers during the Gaza campaign show that “following Ishtiwi's execution, Hamas continued to locate, dismiss, interrogate, and torture any member thought to be gay. A secret internal Hamas document from December 2019 discusses the discovery of "un-Islamic" activity by members, including drug use, prohibited relations with young women, theft, and pedophilia.”
You’d think that Queers for Palestine would notice some of this. Or at least care about this.
But international solidarity with their brothers and sisters doesn’t rank with working for the elimination of Israel.
And so, I have to wonder if at gay pride rallies in June, we will see the return of QuAIA, but re-branded as Queers for Palestine. Will they hijack the parade like Black Lives Matter (BLM) did in 2016? Back then BLM Toronto halted Pride for thirty minutes until a variety of demands had been met.
Queers for Palestine could even resuscitate the QuAIA slogan, “fist by fist, blow by blow, apartheid state has to go.”
They won’t destroy Israel but perhaps they will destroy gay pride parades.
I’m not sure that will be a bad thing.
Thanks to Fred for this latest article and for his many contributions to Canadian Zionist Forum.
We’ve spent the last two days of Passover reading Richard Landes book on antisemitism, “Can the Whole World Be Wrong?”. This book contains some devastating accounts of exactly how press coverage from Gaza is manipulated to ensure that only information favourable to Hamas can be published. It’s especially timely as we can see the results of this pervasive message control in the way the current war is being reported.
Landes also writes about the strange alliance between the organizations of the extreme left (secular, “anti-imperialist”, “anti-war”) and the global Jihadist movement (theocratic, for world conquest, and constantly inciting violence) in their joint project to destroy Israel.
We’ve also started reading “The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century”, an excellent collection of articles by edited by David Hirsh. These articles provide insight into the roots and development of the left wing antisemitism which we are currently seeing in our news coverage, on our streets, in our trade unions, and on our college campuses.
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Queers Against Israel is such a twisted psycho-social perspective - they are advocating for their own demise, by supporting a regime that would curtail and even execute them, if they lived in Gaza.
But what are you implying at the end of the article? Are you meaning that Pride Parades don't have merit?
Good piece. As usual, I wonder if those who need to read it actually will do so.