It's a tiresome issue, but it has come up again.
The odious hate group, "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" which hopes to deligitimize the one Jewish state with boycotts and sanctions and spreads the lie that the one liberal democracy in the middle east is an "apartheid" state, is going to come up as an issue in next year's Gay Pride parade in Toronto.
You can let the Toronto Pride Committee know what you think about the participation of a hate group in the parade by taking this survey put out by Pride's Community Advisory Panel.
Take the few minutes it requires to complete it. It's worth the trouble of speaking out against hate.
UPDATE: Blazing Cat Fur created one of these, which inspired me to create this:
THE ANTI-ISRAEL BDS:
17 comments:
Hey why don't you mind your own business. Are a member of the GLBT community?
My tax dollars, my business. When Pride stops using tax money then it can do what it likes without input from the public and can include any group it sees fit. As a taxpayer, I have a right to express an opinion on how my tax dollars are spent.
That's the democratic way. I know some Stalinists have a problem with that.
And I've been to many Pride festivals and have supported them by buying drinks in the beer gardens!
Did you enjoy the cartoon?
Hey why don't you mind your own bizness anonymous what are you some kind of Jew Hater?
I'll mind my own business when the government at all levels stop picking my pocket to pay for the pervert festivals. Who one has sex with I could careless about, however those parades have become vile venues to parade around and act like half naked deviants where anti-semites are welcomed into the fold.
I think there's a lot more to what Pride represents than just the display of rampant sexual activity, and on the whole, I think it's an important show of support for the Gay community.
But if the Pride festival committee wants to throw that back in the faces of taxpayers by turning it into a venue for a hate group, then they should be prepared to lose public support, including financially.
Any member of the public has a right to express how they think tax funds should be spent. Whether or not public officials listen is up to them and something they have to deal with at election time. But it is offensive to say that you don't have the right to express your views on how your money is spent, so you say whatever you like about it Rose. Whether or not I or anyone agrees and to what extent makes no difference!
Really respect, my brother-in-law has been in a same sex relationship for over thirty years in Vancober and he loaths what the pride parades have become. In the eighties I walked the front lines with the gay community chanting: We are here, we are queer and we're going no where. Funny in those days the were fightening for their lives literally. Sorry but I will not give the gay activists a moral pass, they are alligned with some very nasty people the self same people they use to stand up and renounce groups like Queers against Israel Apartied.
I consider homosexuals to be mere normals, I could careless what they do but once they bring those actions into the public square I shall speak up. When's the last time the gay movement stepped outside of it's narcissitic bubble to raise funds for orphans, ole people and the homeless??
I think we need to put it in perspective. Individual Gay people contribute to all the causes you're talking about, and they do it as individuals or as members of other organizations, just as straight people do but don't refer to their philanthropy as "straight" philanthropy. Sure there may be a deplorable organization like "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" but I don't think it's fair to hold the whole Gay community responsible for them any more than it would be fair to hold the whole straight community responsible for the Ku Klux Klan.
In fact, a lot of the most vocal opposition to the anti-israel bigots comes from within the Gay community, by people like Martin Gladstone and groups like Kulanu.
what is unfortunate is that by allowing a hate group in their parade, it does reflect badly on the community, which is why so many Gay people as well as straight are upset about it.
Rose,
We half naked deviants are too busy paying for an education system that's obviously failing you. If you're going to spew hate about us perverts, at least check your spelling.
It's funny how heterosexuals are using my queer body as a justification to violate the human rights of Palestinians: "Hey, look, Israel has gay parades! Forget about the gross human rights violations!" Denouncing Israeli as an apartheid state is not hateful, it is factual.
Richard, support for queer rights is not about buying alcohol. That's absurd. And, please, don't reduce a conversation that's being critical of Israel as a state into one that's anti-semitic. It's counter-productive and makes you look like an uninformed ass, especially when if you take the time to see the amazing jewish indviduals that are spearing Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.
Anonymous at 7:52, you're making quite a few misrepresenations, which is typical for the Queers against Israel group, who are in general a very disingenous lot.
First of all, I didn't say buying drinks was supporting Gay rights. Buying drinks and spending money and being at Pride is a way of supporting the Pride festival. The Pride festival is not the same thing as Gay rights. Supporting Gay rights includes speaking out for them and writing about them, as well as supporting Gay people in the community.
Is that clear enough?
And it is patently deceitful to try to equate an effort to delegitimize a country by labelling it 'apartheid' when it isn't and to call for sanctions and a boycott of it as "critical."
I'm often critical of Israeli policy.
I think Israel is making mistakes in its policies towards the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, whom they should seek more engagement in, and I think some of their West Bank policies in general are counter-productive to the peace effort.
That is one type of criticism. Lying about it being an "aparthied" country, attempting to destroy it as a Jewish state by calling for sanctions is not criticism. It's something else.
Despite its flaws, which need to be addressed productively, Israel is the only liberal democracy in the middle east, it has the best human rights record in that part of the world, by far, and it's the only country in the region to respect Gay rights.
As to your alleged "amazing jewish individuals," we've seen very recently, in this city, that being born a Jew doesn't prevent someone from being anti-Jewish.
Thomas Friedman is a frequent critic of Israel and he wrote, "Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest."
What Friedman wrote applies very well to your group.
"And it is patently deceitful to try to equate an effort to delegitimize a country by labelling it 'apartheid' when it isn't and to call for sanctions and a boycott of it as "critical.""
Let's talk about Apartheid. Who defines Apartheid?
Article 2 of International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) or simply the Apartheid Convention suffices for me. I hope it does for you as well.
It begins:
--
For the purpose of the present Convention, the term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.
--
Israel satisfies THREE out of the SIX parts of Article 2. The following notes are provided by the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa** (an official government body):
Article 2(a) regarding the denial of the right to life and liberty of person is satisfied by Israeli measures to repress Palestinian dissent against the occupation and its system of domination.
Israel's policies and practices include murder, in the form of extrajudicial killings; torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of detainees; a military court system that falls far short of international standards for fair trial; and arbitrary arrest and detention of Palestinians.
Article 2(d) which relates to the division of the population along racial lines, has three elements, two of which are satisfied:
- Israel has divided the West Bank into reserves or cantons in which residence and entry is determined by each individual’s group identity.
- Israel has extensively appropriated Palestinian land in the OPT for exclusively Jewish use.
What’s the third? It doesn’t satisfy criminalizing mixed marriages but I reckon it's far to difficult to have a mixed marriage in the first place due to the ridiculous restrictions on mobilization.
Article 2(c) clearly states:
Any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms
Israel satisfies this on numerous counts:
1. Restrictions on the Palestinian right to freedom of movement are endemic in the West
Bank, stemming from Israel's control of checkpoints and crossings, impediments created
by the Wall and its crossing points, a matrix of separate roads, and obstructive and all encompassing permit and ID systems that apply solely to Palestinians
2. The right of Palestinians to choose their own place of residence within their territory is
severely curtailed by systematic administrative restrictions on Palestinian residency and
building in East Jerusalem, by discriminatory legislation that operates to prevent
3. Palestinian spouses from living together on the basis of which part of the OPT they
originate from, and by the strictures of the permit and ID systems.
4. Palestinians are denied their right to leave and return to their country. Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 from the territory now inside Israel who are living in the OPT
(approximately 1.8 million people including descendants) are not allowed to return to
their former places of residence. More you say? Similarly, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced to surrounding states from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 have been prevented from returning to the OPT. Even more? Palestinian refugees displaced in 1948 to surrounding states (approximately 4.5 million) are not allowed to return to either Israel or the OPT.
5. Israel denies Palestinians in the OPT their right to a nationality by denying Palestinian
Refugees
6. Palestinians are restricted in their right to work, through Israeli policies that severely
curtail Palestinian agriculture and industry in the OPT, restrict exports and imports, and
impose pervasive obstacles to internal movement that impair access to agricultural land
and travel for employment and business.
7. The prevention of full development in the OPT and participation of Palestinians in
political, economic, social and cultural life is most starkly demonstrated by the effects of
Israel's ongoing siege and regular large-scale military attacks on the Gaza Strip. Although
denied by Israel, the population of the Gaza Strip is experiencing an on-going severe
humanitarian crisis.
So, um, apartheid?
And for the record, what is disingenuous is claiming Friedman is a ‘critic’ of Israel. He is a zealous xenophobe who is intellectually bankrupt and excels in irresponsible journalism.
-L
** http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Occupation_Colonialism_Apartheid_.pdf
Wow, anon -more disinformation and misrepresentation from you than is worth addressing point by point, so let's boil it down to the nutshell you've been avoiding.
Try reading the first paragraph of your tiresomely long two-part post, and if need be, get a dictionary to help you understand some of the terms, because it could have saved all this time:
"For the purpose of the present Convention, the term "the crime of apartheid", which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa, shall apply to the following inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."
Israel's policies are NOT BASED ON RACE, but on nationality, and to some extent religion, which makes it NOT apartheid.
So to quote you, "Article 2 of International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA) or simply the Apartheid Convention suffices for me. I hope it does for you as well."
Yeah, it does and your own standard proves that you're wrong.
Not that virtually all of the rest of what you wrote isn't a load of BS, so I don't want you to think I'm conceding any of that, but since your basic premise for the "apartheid" argument is quite clearly false and absurd, it's an indication of your complete lack of comprehension of the most basic aspects of this complex issue.
And again, as Friedman put it so well, "Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic, and saying so is vile. But singling out Israel for opprobrium and international sanction out of all proportion to any other party in the Middle East is anti-Semitic, and not saying so is dishonest."
Your lies and sole focus on Israel while ignoring or defending much worse regional practices suggests a rather vile agenda on your part.
It's a common theme among the crazy lefties, esp on the errant "apartheid" application to Israel's policies towards persons whose own charter specifically calls for Israel's destruction, to keep citing "race".
Every time I ask, "What race is Islam?" I get no response.
"Fundamental to the question of apartheid is determining whether the groups involved can be
understood as ‘racial groups’. This required first examining how racial discrimination is defined in ICERD and the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, which concluded that no scientific or impartial method exists for determining whether any group is a racial group and that the question rests primarily on local perceptions. In the OPT, this study finds that ‘Jewish’ and ‘Palestinian’ identities are socially constructed as groups distinguished
by ancestry or descent as well as nationality, ethnicity, and religion. On this basis, the study concludes that Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can be considered ‘racial groups’ for the purposes of the definition of apartheid in international law" (17).
http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Occupation_Colonialism_Apartheid_.pdf
With all due respect, you don't seem capable of comprehending some very simple concepts.
Israel is a multi-racial state. Even accepting that Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews are of a different race, Israeli laws do not discriminate against Palestinian Arabs on the basis of race. You might actually want to look at more than one document and read something that isn't written by a neo Marxist or by a discredited Maoist like Norman Finkelstein. The occupied territories are occupied territories.
I'm not sure if you realize that occupied refers to a military occupation and military laws apply, and again, they are on the basis, in the occupied territories, of nationality and not race.
This is getting boring. Try to come up with a new point rather than repeating the same erroneous one over and over, compelling me to provide you with the same reply.
You're right, Richard. This is getting boring and painfully repetitive.
You want to support a violently oppressive regime. I want to support the idea of dismantling the apartheid state and push for a peaceful solution. Unfortunately, a solution can't occur until we acknowledge what is happening. You seem to be incapable of that.
Cheers.
Israel is a liberal democracy that provides equal voting rights for all its citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish and does not have any racial segregation laws.
If you have qualms about a "violently oppressive regime" and an "apartheid state" that oppresses and murders people because of their religion and sexual orientation, you must be talking about Iran or Pakistan.
Good luck dismantling them, hypocrite.
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