Queer enemies indeed

Editorial

In the now-we've-seen-it-all category, Sunday's Pride Parade in Toronto will feature a band of extremists condemning Israel and claiming to care about the dignity of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Palestinians.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) – a group on which the Jewish Independent has commented previously – is a relatively new association that is getting way too much attention nationwide. On Monday, CBC Radio One devoted half an hour to the group or, at least, to a discussion of whether political messages like QAIA's have a place in the Pride Parade. Inexplicably, the CBC panel never really got around to discussing the absurdity of gay people siding with the homophobic Palestinian regimes and against Israel, where gay people have legislated equality.

The question that the CBC thought was most relevant – should the Pride Parade be a venue for political discourse? – seems ridiculous. The Pride Parade should be a forum for fun, yes, and partying, yes, but also for the full panorama of views and experiences representing the entire gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning (GLBTQ) community. ("Queer," for all its fraught baggage, is a "reclaimed" word that is a lot easier to say than GLBTQ.)

But the inclusion of this particular group in the parade should be an eye-opener to the million people who are expected to line the streets for one of North America's biggest gay celebrations Sunday.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is a co-opted movement of people whose own self-interest – and, far worse, the interests of GLBTQ Palestinians – is second, and a far second, to the blind, hysterical ideology of anti-Israel fanaticism. If QAIA cared, as they claim to, about the rights of GLBTQ Palestinians, the object of their wrath would not be Israel.

Untold numbers of Palestinians who are gay – or who are merely suspected of being gay – are imprisoned or executed by the apparatus of the state, both Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Fatah in the West Bank. Many more, possibly a greater number, are murdered by their own families for the "shame" they have brought on their name. Still others are subjected to barbaric treatment at the hands of their government. The lucky ones live a life of fear, loneliness and subterfuge.

In fact, far from being the oppressive state QAIA nutbars will try to depict Israel as being on Sunday, Israel is the refuge of which gay Palestinians dream. Of all places to be born gay, the Palestinian territories would rank low or lowest by any standard or measure – were they not immediately adjacent to Israel. The presence of Israel gives oppressed GLBTQ Palestinians at least a hope for a better life.

One of those who has come forward to tell his story about being gay in the territories is Tarek, a young gay Palestinian man suspected of homosexuality and incarcerated in a prison camp run by the Palestinian Authority and operated by Muslim clerics. For two months, Tarek reports, he was "subjected to beatings with belts, clubs and was forced to sit on bottles which were inserted into my rectum. I was hanged by the hands, I was deprived of sleep and, when I finally did sleep, my limbs were tied to the floor."

This is the reality of life for gay Palestinians. Yet so utterly blinded by irrational dogma and bigotry that they can somehow conclude that they are being true to their gay selves while condemning Israel, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid lets off the hook the worst perpetrators of institutionalized homophobia in the world, while condemning the only country in its region with legalized protections and equality for GLBTQ people. The hypocrisy is staggering, the self-delusion spectacular, the inverted morality unconscionable.

The best thing that people who support equality for GLBTQ Palestinians could do is condemn the Palestinian leadership for its barbaric treatment of sexual minorities. By directly misplacing the blame for the oppression of gay Palestinians on Israel, QAIA and others like them perpetuate the carte blanche given by the world community and allow Palestinian governments to continue their brutal homophobic campaigns.

The deeply disordered members of QAIA are not fighting for gay rights, they are fighting against gay rights. This appalling rejection of what the Pride Parade is about – not any concerns about Israeli policies – is why Queers Against Israeli Apartheid should be shunned on Sunday.

Until the world changes enough to make coming out as an openly gay Palestinian something less than life-threatening, the best thing that gay activists who care about Palestinian sisters and brothers could do is fight with every nerve and sinew to ensure that Israel remains protected, strong, secure and the region's solitary bright beacon of safety and equality for gay people.

^TOP