Israel Continues Its Courtship Of The Gays. Would You Like To Be Its Unofficial Ambassador?
Call it birthright for gays. The Israeli government is continuing its campaign of looking progressive by courting the LGBT community as unofficial ambassadors.
According to the AP, Spokesperson Gal Ilan of the Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs ministry said “the goal was to highlight Israel’s diversity” and that “when people think about Israel, the gay community is often overlooked.”
Our sister site GayCities.com certainly hasn’t forgotten about Israel, particularly the gay mecca of Tel Aviv, which we nominated for Best LGBT-Friendly City of 2011.
For some reason, we’re not enough good press for them, and they’re looking for unofficial envoys to speak about Israel positively, which leaves us with a few questions:
- Will the gays be compensated for this lip service? We’d like an all-expenses-paid bar mitzvah at Club Med please.
- Is this just a PR ploy to make Israel look like a progressive diamond in the Middle Eastern rough while downplaying the Palestinian issue, as we previously considered?
- Do Israeli men prefer unshaven rugged guys like themselves or do they want, like, hairless European twinks?
Foreign marriages, including same-sex marriages, are recognized in Israel. Furthermore, like unmarried opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples in Israel can access nearly all of the rights of marriage in the form of unregistered cohabitation status, akin to common-law marriage.
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Has the Netanyahu regime apprehended and punished the terrorist(s) who massacred those 5 young people at the gay youth center in Tel Aviv? Some of us have not forgotten, and we won’t forget that attrocity against our people in “gay friendly” Israel.
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“”Is this just a PR ploy to make Israel look like a progressive diamond in the Middle Eastern rough while still persecuting the Palestinian state, as we previously considered?”"
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Is this a joke? Lets see, Palestinian gays FLEE to Isreal and our granted asylum there because they are arrested, tortured and killed in Palestine.
Israel recognizes foreign gay marriages and the gay couples are granted full rights as couples.
And yet people are claiming that this is “Pinkwashing” and worrying about whether or not Isreal is treating the Palestine State ok?
Just curious, how come if the KKK or evangelicals make bigoted comments here all the gay blogs and commentors are all over them, and yet Palestine can legally arrest, torture and murder gays and yet we are supposed to ignore it. We call it a hate crime when somebody here is attacked for being gay yet ignore a country where it is illegal for gays to even exist.
It is pure and simple bigotry that would make any gays attack Israel while ignoring the murder of our brothers and sisters in Palestine.
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@Cam:
You forget, it is only ok to protest right-wing nutjobs when they are white…Israelis like Netanyahu and Leiberman are white, while the Palestinian leadership do not play that role, so it’s insensitive to attack their policies.
I have said this on this website over a dozen times, when my partner was in danger of his visa here not being renewed, we contacted Israel’s consulate, who told us that if I claimed Israeli citizenship and married my partner in a state in the US that recognized marriage or in Canada, they would include him as my spouse on my application. That’s a lot better legal recognition of a same sex partner foreign national than the USA offers…
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Trust me, having been there, I’d much rather be gay in Israel than I would in any other country in the Middle East.
When Palestine (or Syria, or, well, you pick) decides that they’ll kill you for being gay, as they would any of their own citizens, you tell me who’s got the better record on human rights. Be an Israeli and disagree with their governement? You’re a typical Israeli. Be a Syrian and disagree with the governement? Well, you tell me what’s going to happen to you.
Your support of Palestine is simple anti-semitism. Period. I’m not saying that there isn’t wrong on the Israeli side. Again, I was there. I saw it – and there’s wrong on that side too.. But I’m also not saying there isn’t a hell of a lot more wrong on the other side. Both with their treatment of their own LGBT citizens as well as the rest of their population who don’t fall in line with the official dictates of the governement.
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@Cam: You HAVE to take that position on the Israeli/Palestinian situation, or you’re not being a good gay. It’s automatic. It’s on the “List” of positions you have to take if you move to the gay ghetto of NYC (and other gay ghettos). Now…it’s certainly okay for people to debate that whole situation and reflect and decide who the real villains might be, but that’s not the Gay Way. You just have to take the anti-Israel position. DON’T even think about it.
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An idiotic article if there ever was one, devoid of any real content other than thinly-veiled disdain. Get real, Israel IS a progressive diamond with a model public health care system, a vast welfare safety net, and more inclusive LGBT laws than we have here in America. I suppose Queerty would have found worthier material to cover in, say, Iran if it wasn’t because they don’t have any gays.
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@derekius maximus: I absolutely agree. This post is so retarded and the author shows his hypocritical double standards – close your eyes to the good things in Israel and close your eyes to the bad things in Palestinian territories…
May I remind the author how very poorly US of A would do if equal standards were applied – I think the US have killed by the greater number of foreign nationality civilians than any other state, not to mention kidnapping them and flying them to secret torture camps… AND US isnt even a beacon on gay rights (Mrs. Clinton is, but then she isnt the US)
So STOP the hypocrisy, please!
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Please, the Jews hate gays just as much as everyone else. The only reason they allow them to join the military is because it’s a numbers game and mandatory. BTW, the whole bible hating on the gays, Leviticus, started with jews hating on the gays. Google it.
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http://www.pewforum.org/Gay-Ma.....pward.aspx
76% of Jews polled support gay marriage.
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All things considered, what’s the point of posting this? I fail to see any real news story.
Israel isn’t perfect, but it’s still far ahead of the curve, when considering it’s gays. I can at least divorce the issue from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since one is not heavily tied in with the other. “Pinkwashing” is a joke to me, since, if you take out the conflict, would Israel still be pulling the same campaigns for gays? The answer is probably yes, if not a little more or less.
Israeli society might have it’s homophobic monsters, but all things considered it’s still pretty pro-gay. I’ve BEEN there, so others who claim otherwise can shove it. I’d ignore the Israeli ultra-Orthodox/type Muslim areas, though, but that goes for the same even here in America. Granted, there is no marriage equality (unless it’s out of state), but Israel’s marriage laws have flaws that go beyond straight/gay boundaries, and I’d argue it’s halfway there with recognizing others.
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@Uncle Mo: Weird how some people think that its good treatment of gays and its own citizens gives Israel a free pass on Palestinians. A few points of my own:
1) Israel treating its citizens well is not an excuse for how it treats Palestinians.
2) Israel treating gays well is not an excuse for how it treats Palestinians.
3) Palestinians treating gays like shit is not an excuse for how Israel treats Palestinians.
Yeah. Israel is good to gays. Good for them. (And I mean that: Good for them.) But treating well one group will never justify mistreatment of another.
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Esculapio
+1
further, why is the low benchmark set of “compared to the rest of the middle east”? are we not entitled to compare israel’s standards on gay rights to those of, say, the Netherlands? should not a country that seeks to have gay ambassadors treat their gays equally in all matters? why act as a gay ambassador for a country that does not grant full equality?
Unless, really, the point is not so much about the gays as… about their arab neighbours in the middle east and, more particularly, their palestinian ones. in which case, it’s not really about the gays at all, but about using gays to defend an indefensible occupation. that, i cannot sign up for.
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No. 10 · Mike wrote, “Your [not sure who this refers to] support of Palestine is simple anti-semitism. Period.”
Nonsense – both Palestinians and Israelis (or rather, Jews) are “semites”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic#Origin :
“The term Semite means a member of any of various ancient and modern Semitic-speaking peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including; Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians), Eblaites, Ugarites, Canaanites, Phoenicians (including Carthaginians), Hebrews (Israelites, Judeans and Samaritans), Ahlamu, Arameans, Chaldeans, Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Hyksos, Arabs, Nabateans, Maganites, Shebans, Sutu, Ubarites, Dilmunites, Maltese, Mandeans, Sabians, Syriacs, Mhallami, Amalekites and Ethiopian Semites. It was proposed at first to refer to the languages related to Hebrew by Ludwig Schlözer, in Eichhorn’s “Repertorium”, vol. VIII (Leipzig, 1781), p. 161. Through Eichhorn the name then came into general usage (cf. his “Einleitung in das Alte Testament” (Leipzig, 1787), I, p. 45). In his “Geschichte der neuen Sprachenkunde”, pt. I (Göttingen, 1807) it had already become a fixed technical term”
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@CBRad: I’m from New York City.
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@Evan Mulvihill: You’re telling me that you were born and raised in NYC..???
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@Evan Mulvihill: Brad seems to have some sort of chip on his shoulder regarding “native” New Yorkers vs. “transplants.” Don’t argue the point with him too much. He *will* cut you.
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@Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva: I have a MAJOR chip. Let’s see them ruin your town, person with too many names, and see if you don’t get a chip (or chipotle) on yours.
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@Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva: It most certainly is real New York. In fact, the boroughs produce more genuine natives (and men who have actually shoulders) than Manhattan does lately (even though my family are generations of Manhattan).
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@Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva: And if you really ARE from Queens originally, what are you doing on this blog? You must know they hate you.
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@CBRad: I’m not “originally” from Queens, certainly not by your definition. Got to this country at 10. I’ve lived in Queens since this, except for 4 years of college (spent at various dorms on the upper west side) and 2 years of grad school (spent abroad). But I came back to Queens because this is what feels like home to me. At any rate, does Queerty hate Queens? Why? What’d we ever do to them?
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@Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva: Living here since 10 years old sort of counts enough. Anyway (and I apologize if I’m sounding too bossy here, or seem like I’m dictating how you should think), the reason Manhattan newcomer gays (and that includes the Queerty staff) hate Queens is because there are too many of the NY natives living there, the real population of NYC that makes up the boroughs (and the police and fire departments, construction workers, too many blue-collar men and women). So they like to think of Queens as unsophisticated and unhip (that’s part of the gay fantasy), along with this natural hatred/envy of the natives that so many newcomers seem to carry (NYC isn’t the only place to go through this- I know Los angeles natives hate it too, and- I suspect- New Orleans natives get it extra bad). Granted, though, the dislike is mutual : you know how separate the Brooklyn, Queens, and Bronx gay worlds are from Manhattan, often not crossing paths at all). You yourself might not have experienced this so harshly, or know of many exceptions to this, but…..you can come to your own conclusions….I won’t argue with you… And others can make up their own minds.
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@Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva: But…BTW…really when you think about it : what has a single one of these outsiders done to improve anything about the city, overall..? All they do is try, in underhanded ways, to attack the population already here, and walk around pretending they’re somehow cooler because they’re in NYC. If someone can educate me I’ll gladly accept it. (And, no, you can’t go all the way back to Cole Porter…John Lennon..or even Warhol..)
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@Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva:
How does it treat Palestinians?
Again, let’s get real: with kid gloves. Israel is routinely shelled by Palestinians. And by routinely I do mean thousands of times a year they are bombed with artillery rockets and mortars. Ask yourself how many times would the U.S. allow any of its cities to be bombed by Mexico before we flattaned the entire place.
Further, according to the United Nations (hardly a bastion of pro-Israel sentiment), Palestinians in the occupied territories enjoy a higher standard of living than Egiptians and Syrians. Look it up, it us called the Human Development Index. So here we have this little invonvenient fact – that Arabs under occupation are materially better off than those immediately on the other side of the border. Clearly, the occupation can’t be as brutal as Israel bashers claim it is.
Further still, well over 96% of Palestinians live under PNA rule or Hamas Rule. Look up the Oslo agreements, it is called Area A. So really, this huge, crushing occupation apparatus is more like a boy scout jamboree when you compare it to what we did in Iraq. Where, BTW, we left about 8X more dead in our wake than the total number of Palestinians killed in all wars with Israel and that is counting since before its independence.
Read more. And I don’t mean Cosmo, you silly.
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@Esculapio Mitiríades Torquemada de la Cueva:
How does it treat Palestinians?
Again, let’s get real: with kid gloves. Israel is routinely shelled by Palestinians. And by routinely I do mean thousands of times a year they are bombed with artillery rockets and mortars. Ask yourself how many times would the U.S. allow any of its cities to be bombed by Mexico before we flattened the entire place.
Further, according to the United Nations (hardly a bastion of pro-Israel sentiment), Palestinians in the occupied territories enjoy a higher standard of living than Egiptians and Syrians. Look it up, it us called the Human Development Index. So here we have this little invonvenient fact – that Arabs under occupation are materially better off than those immediately on the other side of the border. Clearly, the occupation can’t be as brutal as Israel bashers claim it is.
Further still, well over 96% of Palestinians live under PNA rule or Hamas Rule. Look up the Oslo agreements, it is called Area A. So really, this huge, crushing occupation apparatus is more like a boy scout jamboree when you compare it to what we did in Iraq. Where, BTW, we left about 8X more dead in our wake than the total number of Palestinians killed in all wars with Israel and that is counting since before its independence.
Read more. And I don’t mean Cosmo, silly.
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@B: You are wrong. You link wikipedia to prove your point about the Isralie jews being Semites. But it goes to show how much you don’t know history. The majority of Isralie jews are not of semitic orgin. They are of Ashkenazi jews whoes ancestry can be trace to Central and Eastern Europe whoes ancesters later converted to Judaism. Nothing new in the history of mainkind. People have been converting, adopting, dropping, forcing, stealing and adding religions since the history of time.
And the word semite, depending on where you go around the world can often have a different meaning. And has changed meanings at different times throughout history.
One should not think that what they find and link from wikipedia is the absolute truth, from the mouth of god.
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@Tackle:
Not true, and one of the most commonly repeated made-up factoids in the Israel-basher repertoire.
Firstly, most Israelis are not Askkenazim. Secondly, Ashkenazim are exactly what they say they are – Jews of Semite origin. A number of ancestry studies published in reputable, peer reviewed journals show this. Chromosomes and DNA don’t lie.
Newsweek had a brief write-up summarizing studies going back to the 1990s.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/n.....ldren.html
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@ Uncle Mo: Thanks for the link. But it seems to support some of what I’m saying. And I’m def: not here to bash Isralie Jews. You say not true: On what??
The word semite? Which can have a different meaning around the world?
The word semite has chaged meaning throughtout time?
Or do you really believe that the information in wikipedia is 100% correct?
Ok Ok, I’m sure it has to do with what I said about the majority of Isralie Jews not being of semetic origin. About the link and the study sited therein. As I said before, some of it supports what I’m saying. It talks about European addmixter. And Europeans converting and migrating. So do you really believe that there has been NO Europeans in history who have converted to Jaudaism and immigrated or migrated to Israel??
And the study to the link. I would like to know, who funded and payed for this study? And was it subjected to peer reviewe? We can post links back and forth that supports both our views.
But I’m gonna use common sense and logic. Almost everywhere you go around the world, the native people are NOT the majority. Examples…
Aboriginal people only make-up 2.5 of the Australian population.
Native Amaricans are only 2.5 million registered, out of a country of over 300 million.
Indigenous people of the Philippines are only 3% of the popilation.
Indigenous people of Mexico are only 9% of the population.
It would defy logic to believe that the “majority” of Isralies are of the original semetic people. I’m sure there are some still there. But very few in numbers. Like other parts of the world.
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@Tackle:
No it doesn’t when it comes to the central issue. If a number of genetic relatedness studies show that Ashkenaz Jews are related to other Jews and not to Khazars, then it does not prove what you are saying. Trying to de-link Ashkenaz Jews from the rest of the Jewish nation is just a roundabout way of supporting the neocolonialist argument, which Israel bashers sustain. That there’s been abundant mixing with Europeans, and Arabs, and black Ethiopians was never in dispute. It has always been like that. All one has to do is land in Tel Aviv to see that Israeli society is one of amazing diversity.
Secondly, I did not link Wikipedia. I linked an article originally published in Newsweek. All you have to do is go to PubMed and look up the author, you will see that there are a number of studies published in peer-reviewed journals that show pretty much the same result.
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look up antisemitism in the dictionary. it’s definition: anti-jewish. not anti-semite. the root may be semite, but antisemitism IS anti-jewish. that is its definition.
all this “we are all semites” crap is simply avoiding the issue.
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@Spike: said…
“Please, the Jews hate gays just as much as everyone else. The only reason they allow them to join the military is because it’s a numbers game and mandatory.”
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You are flat out lying. Both the Reform and Conservative branches of Judaism, which cover about 90% of all the Jews ordain gay rabbis AND perform ceremonies for gay couples. Additionally, Palestinian gays fleeing PAlestine because they can legally be arrested, tortured or killed there for being gay are granted asylum in Isreal. Oh yeah, but Jews HATE gays don’t they?
I can’t tell if you are just completely ignorant or if you are a bigot and purposely lying.
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My experience in NYC amongst those who define themselves under Conservative is that they don’t like homosexuality. Reform Jewish groups do, but not Conservative or Orthodox.
Least I be told I am wrong, here’s a link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.....ve_Judaism
The worst, of course, are the Orthodox, which is essentially the same as saying fundamentalist in my book since they are the extremist. I rarely talk to them although I see them a lot in Brooklyn, and when I go to my doctor since he’s apparently also of the faith.
They are very anti-gay. They contributed to the antigay movement here and abroad. Although I once meet an Hasidic Jewish guy who was trying to flirt with me. He was very handsome, but it was strange. Like dating Muslim guys or Christians there ‘s always that crazy baggage that comes with religion so I knew to steer clear of anything more than flirting.
None of which has anything to do with Israel, which may have a heavily liberal population, but due to fear of Palestinians, they are ruled by Conservatives and Orthodox Jews – hence the leadership. So, no, I am not buying the whole “we are for gay rights.” As someone else said, they are for the warm bodies since Israel right now is about the numbers game. Its the same numbers game that is a road block on a right of return. They are fearful that Palestinians will out number them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P....._of_return
I know I am wasting my time. this is about being loudest as it has been for quite a while with the Israeli issue, but not all of us are unaware of what’s at stake. So yes, Palestinians are really bad on gay rights. That doesn’t excuse or make up for Israeli issues. In fact, I don’t see gay rights a prop they can trot out to claim they are enlightened. Islamists like to trot out class issues to say they are better than the West too. it doesn’t mean shit when it comes down to it other than prop just like israel sees us as props.
As for Israel Liberalism, Its like saying 50 percent of the American public support gay marriage. Its meaningless since that’s not the percent that shapes American politics. This came to ahead recently for example with the protests against what the Conservatives and Orthodox Jewish Political Groups are doing to the economy there.
Indeed, like with the US and its trotting out wars around the world, Israel Neoliberals like the currently leadrship is playing the sam sorts of games:
“Nevertheless, in August 2011, as the protests grew significantly, the demands became more radical as they began to call for a sweeping overhaul of the Israeli economy and society which would change the current Neo liberal approach of the Netanyahu government to a more social approach. ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.....e_protests
So, like with the UK Conservatives, which are using gay rights issue to prove how “liberal” they are, I suspect the same is happening with ISrael.
We should use these things to advance gay rights when we can, but never be fooled by them. They aren’t our friends. Just people we should use on just this issue,a nd this issue alone. Not Paletinian issues.
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Hasbara spam alert
With Israel’s foreign ministry organising volunteers to flood news websites with pro-Israeli comments, Propaganda 2.0 is here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comm.....stry-media
A Field Guide to Hasbara
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/284723.html
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it is simple pinkwashing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11.....-tool.html