Michael Lucas is so not going to be happy about this: Palestinian activists are protesting against branding Israel as a gay-friendly destination!
Files a member (witness?) of the protest: “On Sunday afternoon local Palestinian and Jewish LGBT\queer activists held a protest against promoting LGBT tourism to Israel in front of the Tel Aviv gay center. The protesters intercepted a group of travel agents and other guests attending a conference that took place inside the gay center. The conference was organized by various Israeli institutes and International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA). While entering, the guests went by the protesters, who were wearing T-shirts that read ‘QUEERS VISIT PALESTINE, NOT THE OCCUPIERS & OPPRESSORS’. Some of the protesters faces were covered with dirt, contrasting the concept of a ‘tourist attraction,’ putting themselves on display, not as shining examples of gay Israeli privilege but as wounded dirty queers, embodying the ugly side of the occupation being masked by the gay tourism initiative.”
We’re awaiting word from Mr. Lucas, the porn entrepreneur, who just got done opining that queers who support Palestine must hate Jews.
Fitz
I encourage any LBGT’er who is a Palestinian sympathizer to go the territory and hang out. In fact, I dare ya.
mattymatt
So, those queers who visit Palestine … do they come back?
Fitz
Matt- no, it’s kind of a win-win.
AL
Oh, sweet Jesus, finally Queerty has something nice to say about Israel and at least some sort of criticism of the Muslim world. By the way, any gay person who roots for Palestine is a complete idiot.
Jon B
This conversation again?
Can it really even be a debate if there is no possible argument that Palestinians are better on gay rights than the Israelis?
Merv
Fitz: “I encourage any LBGT’er who is a Palestinian sympathizer to go the territory and hang out. In fact, I dare ya.”
I get your point. Wouldn’t want to get blown up by indiscriminate Israeli bombing, shot by an extremist Israeli settler, or run over by an Israeli bulldozer, would we?
RJ
Wow, this site is as biased as Fox News is.
alan brickman
Palestine will kill all and any queers..Israel will wine and dine them…Gosh!! It’s so hard to decide….
alan brickman
WHY DOES QUEERTY HATE JEWS SO MUCH??…..
transmit
First Jamaica , now Israel. Two small terrorist countries I’ll never visit.
INCognito
Dear Merv,
You can go to the West Bank. There are none of what you describe. Mostly because Hamas is not in control there, and neither Hamas, nor any other of a myriad Palestinian organizations send any rockets into Israel proper from there at the moment.
So, any queer willing to compare queer life in Israel and Palestine can travel to the West Bank. Just don’t forget to drape yourself in rainbow flag and display appropriate paraphernalia that will give you as a lover of your own sex or both. I will patiently await your report.
Jon B
@Merv: Point taken… that stuff does unfortunately go on. However, should you travel to the West Bank and let it be known that you are gay, you wouldn’t have time to wait and see any of that for yourself, because you’d be stoned to death, beheaded, or hanged too quickly.
@Transmit: Well, let’s see… in Jamaica they are completely homophobic. In Tel Aviv, when I was 16 (before I came out), I was taken to a gay bar by a group of straight Israeli’s who liked it because they made stronger drinks and played better dance music; everyone got on famously. In Jamaica, they string gays up to trees, or gut them with knives. In Israel, when some crazy shot and killed gay youth at an LGBT center, the Israeli Prime Minister attended the public rallies and spoke out against such hateful crimes. Yeah, I see how they are comparable.
Morons.
Mike
@alan brickman: why? read AL’s comment and u’ll know why MOST people have a problem with those country-stealing terrorists!
Dale
In the August 2002 New Republic, Yossi Klein Halevi described the treatment of one gay youth: “He was beaten by his family, then warned by his father that he’d strangle (him) if it ever happened again.” Later, “he was arrested … and forced to stand in sewage water up to his neck, his head covered by a sack filled with feces, and then he was thrown into a dark cell infested with insects and other creatures he could feel but not see.” This is not by any means the worst. Halevi quoted the friend of another victim. “They put him in a pit. It was the fast of Ramadan, and they decided to make him fast the whole month but without any break at night. They denied him food and water until he died in that hole.”
Gay Palestinians fleeing for their lives, then, is not surprising. But where they seek refuge is. Paul Varnell, writing for the Chicago Free Press, offers a hint: “Which Middle Eastern country has a variety of gay organizations … has members of parliament who speak out on behalf of gays … has a head of state (willing to) meet with gay activists? … Israel.”
http://www.glapn.org/sodomylaws/world/palestine/pseditorials001.htm
Tali
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1118197.html
hardmannyc
9 people protested, according to the photo. I think Queerty is just trying to stir the pot.
RM
God, why does everyone view this as an either/or situation?
It’s not really debatable that Israel is the most friendly country to gays in the middle east. And it’s not debatable that gays are persecuted in the West Bank and Gaza.
Opposing the occupation of the Palestinian Territories should not blind you to those facts. Similarly, supporting Palestinian independence should not blind you to their condemnable treatment of gays and lesbians.
hardmannyc
^^^ I’m sorry but that’s much too rational an approach to this problem!
Scott in NYC
Queerty seems intent on, one way or another, shoving a dangerous lie down our collective throats: Hamas-controlled Palestinian territories are more amenable to gay people than Democratic Israel. This position might get you glowing nods from those on the radical left, but should an unwitting reader actually believe and act on it, they might find out the truth in a very unpleasant way. This fantasy land Queerty editors live in must be very nice. But the reality is far different.
Quinn
RM-
Stop that! Stop using logic! It has NO PLACE here.
Attmay
These Uncle Toms are the real “Jews For Hitler”.
There are no “Palestinians”. They are just Arab land robbers, in another line of land robbers trying to steal land from Jews, who owned the land before the child-rapist Muhammad was even born.
I oppose the idea of giving these genocidal murderers a state. Should the Ku Klux Klan get its own country? Or did you all not see that Mickey Mouse ripoff video where Farfour the Mouse encouraged “Palestinian” children to kill Jews. None other than Walt Disney’s daughter condemned the video, which was made by Hamas:
http://itn.co.uk/dcc3bb053d9e55037f16c8311d0e5193.html
Theodore Herzl formed the idea of modern Zionism in the late 1890s, when what is now Israel was illegally occupied by the Ottoman Empire. The Dreyfus Trial pushed him over the edge, and anti-semitism was common in all countries. This was decades before the Holocaust, when Hitler was still a youth.
Furthermore, Israel treats Israeli Arabs better than the PA treats its own people, or other Arab states have. Muslims and Christians are allowed to practice their religion freely.
Remember, Yasser Arafat tried to overthrow King Hussein of Jordan, who was no peach himself. Ehud Barak made huge concessions to Arabpig and what did the people of Israel get in return? The Second Intifada.
When they agree to accept Israel’s current borders, its status as a Jewish state, and agree to protect human rights (including gay rights and religious rights), then they can talk about statehood.
M
seriously? the “child-rapist Muhammad”? are you really going to stoop to that? especially when, by their own account, the ancient Israelites waged a mercilessly genocidal campaign against multiple peoples (including killing women and children because “god told them to”) to obtain the land.
henry
It is possible to feel sympathy for the Palestinian plight and also be horrified at the treatment of gays and women in Muslim society. It is equally possible to admire the relative tolerance of Tel Aviv society, and the fairly smooth integration of gays into public life in Israel, while still condemning most of Israel’s actions in the occupied territories. Why is all discussion on the internet so quickly debased?
henry
Sorry RM, didn’t see your comment before, and posted more or less the same thing. Though it does bear repeating.
Vlad
Henry, it certainly does bear repeating this very logical view of the situation in Palestine/Israel.
Attmay
M,
Muhammad had a 9-year-old child bride. Even Roman Polanski waited until the girl was 13 to rape her. He was a pervert and a hatemonger. And don’t forget about Koran 2:191: “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them.”
It is an either/or between a free culture and a slave culture, and I choose to support the free one. Their own government makes genocidal propaganda and denies the rights of Jews to live there, using yet another blood libel of “illegal occupation”, right up there with all the other blood libels against the Jews. (If gay isn’t the new black, then it’s at least the new Jewish, with all the blood libels against us from Christians and Muslims.)
Israel decriminalized sodomy in 1988, fifteen years before Lawrence v. Texas. They have civil unions, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel got gay marriage before we did.
The so-called Palestinians treat their own people like dirt. They’re all in poverty while the murderer Yasser Arafat died a wealthy man. They don’t need to be oppressed by the Israelis, they’re doing it to themselves. Oh, and did I mention their murderous homophobia.
I weep for the victims of Nazis and the victims of Palestinazi terrorism. I rejoice at the punishment of the Nazis and the destruction of Nazi Germany, and will actively work towards the destruction of this anti-semitic homophobic hate group that plays at nationhood. Forgive me if I shed no tears over the sworn enemies of my people. Both my people. I am a gay man and a Jew and I will not support the enemies of either, anymore than I would support the governments of Jamaica, Iran, or Saudi Arabia.
I hope all you Uncle Tom “queers for ‘Palestine’ ” like being in the intellectual company of none other than David Duke.
O
Quote= And don’t forget about Koran 2:191: “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them.”
Please dont pick words as you wish, try to understand whole meaning of it.
Let me tell you the after that
Kuran 2:194 – Bakara Suresi 194. Ayet
“Immunities are mutual. Attack them if they attack you, but attack them as they attack you. If they stop (and ask mercy) dont touch them.”
So its allowed to “attack back” if someone comes over our house and attack us. Familiar with the concept?
If someone kills a person merely for who they are, or without any defense reason its a murder doesnt matter if you are a muslim, christian or jew.
I’m a muslim and also gay. I’m sorry there are only bad examples in the world you see but as a gay-muslim in Turkiye, despite there is a non gay-friendly life here, being gay is not illegal here. Yes there’s a lot to achive in here for better LGBT lifestyle.
Also you can hate me or any other muslim but please show some decency and dont insult my belief or my prophet, just because you see some so-called muslims act terribly opposite to their belief with justifying it blindly with their regional traditions.
My belief teaches me to respect other beliefs. So eventhough I dont beleive christianity, budaism, hinduism or any other belief; I dont insult any christian, budist or atheist. Respect beliefs hate individuallly wrong behaviours.
I hope I could express myself. Sorry about my english.
hephaestion
I recall reading about a gay man in the West Bank who was killed by his family – an honor killing – by drowning him in a giant vat of shit. Yeah, they’re really pro-gay there.
zoe
@ No.27 “O” – you did express yourself in a way that made sense to me, and i want to say thanks for your perspective since it’s an important one…
– what doesn’t make sense to me is people’s blindness to the fact that they’re arguing over the better of two evils (or more)…
you’re right when you say that people shouldn’t critisize others’ religions or beliefs for the sake of their argument, but what you and everyone else fails to acknowledge is the problem of strongly held beliefs being the root cause of all this chaos and destruction… anytime one believes in the “rightness” of something outside themselves it gives them an impetus to try and prove their rightness (and righteousness), which is when we end up with israelis bombing palestinians, muslims and hindus killing each other, christians eliminating native culture and racial genocide such as in darfur…
the problem IS religion.
the problem IS one set of beliefs being held as more true than another. why would anyone want to kill for what they believe in? i believe in the value of human life, not my beliefs.
i know one thing, that i know nothing.
O
Thanks Zoe, for your answer. And eventhough I’m not an atheist I partially agree with you. But where I disagree is, ignorant people using belief and religion to kill or make other people miserable is the problem.
Also those ignorant actions around muslim countries are not only towards gay people, unfortunately its also towards women. I’m really in such a pain to see in some cities they treat women bad (so-called-honor killings). It also painful to see, unlike other muslim countries’s traditions; a country originaly had motriarchal family system since Ottoman, and after born Turkiye which enfranchisement of woman happened in 1920’s, have this kind of acts in some cities. That’s another long and sad discussion.
To my belief, religion is for guiding to a peaceful life… But unfortunately for some, (whatever) their religion (is), it is for justifying whatever they do.
Bill Perdue
The rightwing leadership of the zionist colony and the Palestinians both tolerate the kind of anti-GLBT hate speech that promotes violence like the murders of GLBT youth in Tel Aviv. The only question here, given that, is what attitude sane people should take towards the zionist practices of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
The ILGTA should not be encouraging anyone to visit the zionist colonized part of Palestine. Like unions, professional associations and others the ILGTA should be enforcing a boycott of the zionist colony in Palestine. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/17/tuc-back-boycott-israel-goods The reason so many anti-apartheid groups in the EU boycott the zionist colonial administration is because it imposes an apartheid regime on Palestinians interspersed with episodes of ethnic cleansing like Deir Yassin, Shatila and Gaza.
Those are all incidents where the ‘brave’ soldiers of the IDF and its precursors and allies seem to specialize in the murder of Palestinian women and children. These thugs could have been at Wounded Knee because they ape the land grabbing racist idea that “The only good Indian/Arab is a dead Indian/Arab.”
No. 28 • hephaestion – that sounds like the kind of lies they used to print in Der Angriff. In fact it’s exactly like the kind of anti-Semitic garbage the Nazis used to spew. “I heard from some one who knows a guy whose friend said they eat babies.”
Attmay is a Republican, a zioninst and as he repeatedly reminds us, batshit crazy.
No. 18 • hardmannyc – “I’m sorry but that’s much too rational an approach to this problem!” What would a zionist sociopath like hardmannyc know about rational. While Iranian GLBT youths, students, workers and women are dying and facing torture to overthrow the mad killer ayatollahs he wants them all murder with nuclear weapons to protect the zionist colony in Palestine. “I say, go bush – nuke the bastards” and “Bomb ‘em. Bomb ‘em. They’re beyond redemption at this point. they’re a hateful mass of religious fanatics whose only purpose on this earth is to spread hatred, ignorance and intolerance.”
To sum up, both the zionists and the islamists tolerate or encourage anti-GLBT hate speech and violence. The only question here is one of decency and principles.
It’s indecent and unprincipled to support the zionist colonial administration in any way and we should join unions in boycotting them and back the antiwar movements insistence that the US stop providing for the weapons it’s client zionist state uses to murder Palestinians. The only solution is the creation of a socialist, democratic multi-ethnic Palestinian state.
Attmay
@31 Bill KillJews:
“Attmay is a Republican, a zioninst and as he repeatedly reminds us, batshit crazy.”
I’m batshit crazy? You’re the one advocating the destruction of a free country and replacing it with a despotic one. The Palestinians don’t want a multi-ethnic state. They don’t even want the two-state solution. They want a Judenrein, all-Muslim, all-Arab state and they want all of Israel’s land.
You are a fucking monster. Your ideology has resulted in 100 million deaths and you still talk like the love child of Joseph Stalin and David Duke.
If unions oppose Israel, then God fucking bless scabs and union busters.
Look at the wonderful, pro-labor, pro-socialist people you support:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3u3rMIs5hw
Bill Perdue
Let me amend my description of Attmay. Totally batshit crazy. And a terrific spokemodel for zionism.
henry
I hate to be drawn even further into this nonsense, but Bill and Attmay, you’re both insane. Neither of you has any kind of perspective on this issue. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israeli Jews are simply victims or aggressors; both are a people with national aspirations who harm and are harmed by each other. Both have been victims of injustices, and both have been perpetrators of mindless violence. I don’t wish to comment on this issue any further, since I live in Israel and have to discuss this bullshit on a daily basis, but really, grow up both of you. You both sound like the obnoxious Jews and Arabs I deal with all the time who can only talk about the past instead of trying to find some way to actually make a future exist. Enough, already. Comment again when you can see shades of grey, you idiots.
a
I was just in Palestine. It was an amazing experience. The people were so hospitable and friendly, and I learned a lot about them and how they live.
The regular people, they just want to be able to live life freely, without having to go through checkpoints to get from there town to the city, without having to get a permit to harvest their own land. The regular Palestinians accept Israel, but think that they have the right to their own state to live life too. Is that too much to ask?