As Queerty reported last week, a mural touting Israel’s record on LGBT rights has gone up in New York‘s West Village, at Leroy Street between Green and Hudson Streets. The painting (above) features a sillohuete of two men holding hands, with a banner asking “Who would you want at your wedding?” and listing the Promised Land’s accomplishments as well as misdeeds by Iran, Eqypt and other Middle East countries.
The mural, sponsored by The Alumni Community of Birthright Israel, was unveiled in conjunction with Israel Independence Day on Monday. Critics claim it’s another example of “pinkwashing”—Israeli advocates touting the country’s gay rights to obscure its treatment of Palestinians. Ironically The Jerusalem Post reports that the Knesset today overwhelmingly rejected a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, with 39 opposed and 11 in favor. Civil unions are currently recognized throughout the nation.
Click through for more images of “Who Would You Want at Your Wedding?”
Marie Cohn
Nothing on the mural about the Palestinian gays immiserated by Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, though.
andrew
well at least it makes a very good point
Charley
@Marie Cohn:
And tell me what rights gays have in the Palestinian Authority, or god forbid, in Hamas’ Gaza?
Dee Dee
@Charley: The same ones the have under Israeli Occupation.
Charles The Great
@Dee Dee: Why hasn’t Palestinian Authority or the Hamas government who are the elected officials of the Palestinian People do not address Gay Palestinian Rights?
Mary
As I said before, disgusting piece of pinkwashing.
Charles The Great
@Mary: It is freedom of expression and not pinkwhasing. The only people who ‘pinkwash’ are the people who are using a conflict for their own agenda. Tell me this next time when the United States does not allow Gay Marriage but saying they have gay rights and ‘spreading democracy’ at the same time.
nick
@Dee Dee: This doesn’t change the fact that in a non-Occupied situation that they would suddenly grant queer rights.
The plan fact of the matter is that they are both wrong. Don’t act like queers wouldn’t be repressed and oppressed if Israel wasn’t there. Hypocrites. Pinkwashing. Get real, Mary. Go be a “Mary” in any of the countries listed, then go be a Mary in Israel. Report back to us, fool.
Charles The Great
@Marie Cohn: Why can’t Hamas government in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority give them equal rights then. Why can not their elected government give extend rights to Gay Palestinians?
Mary
@Charles The Great: “The only people who ‘pinkwash’ are the people who are using a conflict for their own agenda.”
That’s precisely what the right-wing Israeli Jews do. They try to demonize the other Middle Eastern states and portray themselves as saints. If someone did this to Israel, the Zios would immediately shout “anti-Semitism”.
“Tell me this next time when the United States does not allow Gay Marriage but saying they have gay rights and ‘spreading democracy’ at the same time.”
I am not a US citizen. I agree with you in that the USA is hypocritical and doesn’t practice what it preaches.
Drew
@Mary: Israel doesn’t need to demonize the other Middle Eastern states. They do pretty well the job by themselves.
Cam
Pinkwashing? LOL!!!!!
Nice try, this is a PHONY attempt by anti-gay, pro-Palestinian groups to try to negate the simple fact of Isreal’s gay rights record.
i.e. if you give something a label you can negate the fact of it.
The facts are these. Isreal allows gays fleeing Palestine to seek asylum in Isreal because they can be arrested and tortured by law in Palestine. Murder of young gays is common.
People like Mary, Dee Dee, and Marie Cohn all do the same thing on here…they ALL avoid talking about gays treatment by the Palestinian govt. You three are anti gay and don’t care about gay rights at all if you are trying to defend Palestine.
As long as they arrest, torture, and kill gays, and Isreal grants fleeing gays protection from them, then I do not care one bit about anything else going on there. They would kill any of us, so they are no different than countries like Uganda in my book.
James from Canada
@Mary: What Mary does not seem to get or do any Anti Israel Activists do not seem to understand every country in the world does the as Israel but for some reason the seem to think there is a plot behind this. I live in Nova Scotia and they are known as Mississippi of the North under Jim Crow but does the same promoting Nova Scotia as a gay friendly area to visit.
Mary
@nick: “Pinkwashing. Get real, Mary. Go be a “Mary” in any of the countries listed, then go be a Mary in Israel. Report back to us, fool.”
No need for name-calling. Just makes you look immature. I have never denied that Israel is way better at LGBT rights than the other Middle Eastern states. The problem is that Israel misuses its LGBT rights record to distract from its human rights violations. And that’s disgusting. A country has to treat ALL people properly, not just SOME of them.
Charles The Great
@Mary: and so do all nations do the same
Mary
@Drew: “Israel doesn’t need to demonize the other Middle Eastern states. They do pretty well the job by themselves.”
The existence of the mural proves you wrong!
James from Canada
@Mary: Freedom of expression by a artist is the evil Israel PR? Tell this to your very homophobic Pro Palestinian Activists and Marxist overloads.
Mary
@James from Canada: “What Mary does not seem to get or do any Anti Israel Activists do not seem to understand…”
I am not anti-Israel, just anti-Zionism. I don’t dislike any country. However, there are things that I dislike about a country. I can appreciate Israel’s LGBT rights record while at the same time condemning Israel for its human rights violations and its attempts to distract from them by pinkwashing.
Mary
@James from Canada: “Freedom of expression by a artist is the evil Israel PR?”
Under certain circumstances, yes.
James from Canada
@Mary: and you oppose the system that created Israel and want to impose a one state solution which neither side wants?
Norman Finkelstein even even says why this will never work https://vimeo.com/36854424
Mary wants to create another Yugoslavia I see
Matt Cornell
Just in time for Nakba Day. How perfectly horrible.
Jaack65
Gay Palestinian is an oxymoron. Mohammed said God forbids it and punishable by death. End of gay problem.
Cam
@Mary: said…
“I am not anti-Israel, just anti-Zionism. I don’t dislike any country.”
______________
Sorry Mary, you have posted WAAAAAYYYY too many times here for somebody that is claiming not to hate that country.
The fact is, what you are doing is NO different than going to a meeting of the NAACP 50 years ago and asking them to get outraged because the KKK didn’t like the way it was being treated.
You are asking gays, to hate country that gives us legal rights, AND protects fleeing gays in favor of a country that arrests and tortures gays.
You are a sickening bigot who obviously hates gays if you think that gays should support any country that would, by law, see us all in jail or killed.
Nice try bigot.
Mary
@Cam: “you have posted WAAAAAYYYY too many times here for somebody that is claiming not to hate that country.”
I only posted here this often, because several people responded to me and I responded to their response. That’s how a dialog works. Got it?
“You are asking gays, to hate country that gives us legal rights.”
I can see that you totally fell for the pinkwashing propaganda. No, I don’t ask you to hate Israel. I just ask you to condemn Israel’s human rights violations. As I said before, Israel does a good job in terms of LGBT rights. However, this doesn’t excuse its crappy treatment of Palestinians. Of course, Palestine is anything but LGBT-friendly, but this doesn’t justify Israel’s denial of the human rights of Palestinians. LGBT rights and Palestinian rights are two separate issues. Israel has to grant BOTH groups equal rights, not just one of them.
“You are a sickening bigot who obviously hates gays”
No, I don’t hate gays. After all, I’m “half gay”, i.e. bisexual.
Mary
Israel is helping Assad killing his people to divert from their own crimes. So they can Assadwash
Cam
@Mary: said…
“I can see that you totally fell for the pinkwashing propaganda. No, I don’t ask you to hate Israel. I just ask you to condemn Israel’s human rights violations. As I said before, Israel does a good job in terms of LGBT rights.”
________________________________-
In your two sentences you completely contradict yourself. There is no “Pinkwashing” if Israel is….in fact doing a good job with gay rights.
You sit here and condemn and condemn and condemn Isreal, but never once have stated the FACT that being gay is ILLEGAL in Palestine, that being gay will get you arrested and tortured, and that family murder of gays is overlooked by the govt.
That gay Palestinians flee to Isreal and are granted asylum.
You are a bigot and you hate gays. Otherwise you wouldn’t be complete, one-sidedly ignoring the practical genocide that goes on against gays in the territory.
And sweetie, just because you once kissed your girlfriend in a bar to become the center of attention doesn’t make you a REAL bisexual. A REAL Bisexual would hardly be defending a country where being bisexual would land them in jail.
Again, nice try bigot.
SteveC
Israel has a reasonable (but not great gay rights record.)
Israel’s appalling treatment of occupied Palestine remains inexcusable.
Israel needs to get out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Screw ‘god’ – that a$$h0le is fake.
doug105
Lets see
http://www.queerty.com/four-gay-men-sentenced-to-death-by-iranian-courts-20120514/
Ya I still don’t give a crap.
Jose
Well would Israel bomb me because I’m brown? I think mass killings of the neighboring civilian population, blockade of humanitarian aid, occupation of land and natural resources. Settlements have plenty of water while local Palestinian population have droughts.
I just think that if they want to put a mural you gotta be honest. Look at the good or the bad. I would rather visit Israel than Iran, but I would rather Israel have a bigger heart.
Mike
@Jose: “mass killings of the neighboring civilian population”
lol. Didn’t know we’re talking about Battleship. Pls get your facts right.
R.A.
Nothing wrong with being proud of tolerance.
Is this an effort to win gay support for Israel? Sure – so what?
I wish our own Republicans gave a damn about our lives and what we thought.
Mary
@Cam: “There is no “Pinkwashing” if Israel is….in fact doing a good job with gay rights.”
I understand what you mean. Apparently, we just have a different definition of the term “pinkwashing”. I define pinkwashing as the attempt of a country to distract attention away from its human rights violations by emphasizing its LGBT rights record. According to Wikipedia, pinkwashing is a portmanteau of pink ribbon and whitewash. To whitewash is a metaphor meaning to gloss over or cover up vices, crimes or scandals or to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data.
“never once have stated the FACT that being gay is ILLEGAL in Palestine, that being gay will get you arrested and tortured, and that family murder of gays is overlooked by the govt.”
That’s not true. I already stated in a previous post, which got deleted for whatever reason, that Palestine sucks at LGBT rights.
“That gay Palestinians flee to Isreal and are granted asylum.”
They are not granted asylum.
“you hate gays”
You keep ignoring what I wrote. I wrote in a previous comment, the one that got deleted, that LGBT people deserve equal rights. Does this sound like hatred?
“just because you once kissed your girlfriend in a bar to become the center of attention doesn’t make you a REAL bisexual”
Interesting how you make negative – and false – assumptions about me, just because I disagree with you on one single issue. I am bisexual for real, not barsexual. I can’t stand fake bisexuals, because they are responsible for our crappy reputation.
“A REAL Bisexual would hardly be defending a country where being bisexual would land them in jail.”
I don’t defend Palestine as a country, i.e. its anti-gay government or legislation. I defend the human rights of the people in this country. That’s a difference. Even if Palestinians are homo-haters and don’t respect OUR human rights, we still need to respect THEIR human rights. Otherwise we are not any better than them. Do you really want to stoop to their level? All people deserve human rights, not just those whom we like and agree with.
“Again, nice try bigot.”
Would you please stop the name-calling!? That’s really cheap.
Good grief
@Cam: “Isreal [sic] allows gays fleeing Palestine to seek asylum in Isreal because they can be arrested and tortured by law in Palestine.”
Unfortunately not generally true. While Israel’s record on gays rights is commendable, at least compared to the situation in the U.S., many gay Palestinians in Israel are forced to live “underground” with their Israeli partners who help keep their presence in Israel hidden from the police, who would pursue them for staying illegally in the country. Gay Palestinians fleeing to Israel have been subject to house arrest or deportation by Israeli authorities, due to the law of asylum not covering areas in which Israel is in conflict.
As for gay Palestinians living in the occupied territories, in addition to their other problems, they have to deal with the misery of the often brutal Israeli occupation, for which Israel has to be held responsible.
Nili
I live in Israel and those like “Mary” can easily prove their point. I suggest they go as they are to Gaza or one of the PA controlled areas. If they make it out alive, rest assured that Israel will take them in, care for them and offer them a lift home. Islam does not allow “gays”. Their punishment calls for death in the strictest areas. All you have to do is listen to their own leaders and people stating this! You can listen to them or read the Arab sites–Google translator does a so-so job, but enough that you will get the gist. Israel has problems, but torturing and murdering gays is not one of them. You need to take a reality check!
Mary
@Nili: How much does the Israeli government pay you for spreading this pinkwashing hasbara?
I just read an interesting article on Mondoweiss regarding this topic. Here are some excerpts:
LGBT activists protested at New York City’s “Celebrate Israel” parade today, objecting to Israel’s apartheid laws denying Palestinian human rights and its use of gay rights messaging to portray Israel as open and democratic.
“Israel is trying to repair its horrible human rights profile by painting itself as a gay mecca,” said Brad Taylor of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. “But having some gay clubs in Tel Aviv doesn’t make Israel a democracy. Israel builds separate roads for Jews and Arabs, separate schools, separate neighborhoods. Your rights to work, travel, marry, etc. — they all depend on whether or not you’re Palestinian. It’s apartheid, whether you’re gay or straight.”
“The Israeli government’s ‘Brand Israel’ PR campaign tries to sell a twisted message: Israel supports gay rights, so you must support Israel — you can’t oppose Israeli violence against Palestinians. What a disgusting abuse of the LGBT community! So much of the LGBT community is absolutely outraged at the Israeli government,” said Emmaia Gelman of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/lgbt-activists-protest-nyc-celebrate-israel-parade.html