Over 100,000 at Tel Aviv Gay Pride Parade, regions biggest

[Ken Burch]

51. Well, I don't know everything you do offline, obviously.

It would be stupid for me to imply that the issue affects both of us in the same way. Obviously and naturally, it's far more personal and direct for you.

It was a reference to commitment.

I was speaking out in support of gay rights in high school in the late Seventies(made it an issue as a candidate in a mock election), when saying anything against homophobia meant having people assume you were gay(I didn't care that they did, but that had an effect on a lot of people).

Wasn't as much of a risk to me as to you, but still, I was in whatever way I could be before it was cool.

You've suffered much more oppression than I ever will, and I don't diminish any of that. All I've said in this thread is that referencing this issue in relation to Israel is not, in many cases, actually about the LGBTQ cause at all(that was the point the Canadian LGBTQ group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid were trying to make in their long-time struggle to keep marching in the Toronto Pride Parade). To you, it is, but you can't seriously tell me you're unaware of the use Netanyahu and AIPAC make of this issue. There's no reason supporters of any right-wing government anywhere would be natural allies of the LGBTQ cause-the right-wing in any culture is always the most religious-fundamentalist section of the society in which it works, and religious-fundamentalists everywhere, in ALL religions, are implacably anti-gay-and always will be. The only reason apologists for a government based in that part of the spectrum(as opposed to yourself)would ever use the fact that their country is gay-friendly(something no right-wing party anywhere can ever take credit for, obviously)is as a distraction from other issues. Do you really not see how this is used by Likud and AIPAC to try to make the case that the Occupation doesn't matter, that the settlements don't matter, that all of that is somehow justified by the country's progressiveness in this one area? That's why I said "don't be naive"-not as an insult, but simply to point out that you should be aware of this use of your cause by people who don't actually care about you. Co-optation is an old story in politics-and that's what's happened here.

My pointing that out doesn't disrespect you or your experience in the slightest. I think you do understand it at a basic level, but you think that admitting the way the issue is used in this context means "giving aid and comfort to the enemy".

The reason I don't think making a big deal about covering the Tel Aviv pride rally helps LGBTQ people in the rest of the region is that, quite frankly, the worst way to help people fighting for any progressive cause in those countries is to use Israel as an example. When that is done, it allows the regimes to imply that the LGBTQ cause is somehow linked to Israel and to Zionism-which is just what those regimes need to do to justify suppressing it. And from what I've seen, LGBTQ people in Israel, for the most part(other than some true heroes like Ezra Nawi) have not stood in solidarity with Palestinian LGBTQ people-possibly out of the belief that expressing any empathy with any Palestinians, even Palestinian gays somehow "endangers Israeli security". This needs to change. It is the best strategy in all situations for all oppressed groups to align with each other, to fight for each other's freedom-that's the only way change comes.