Red State is inveighing against one of the weirdest stories to come out of the G8 Summit in Toronto, which naturally has nothing to do with the Summit as such. It involves an organization calling itself “Queers against Israeli Apartheid.”
This is their term for themselves, no one else’s.
Apparently this organization won the right to publicly protest at the Summit and claims that it is a triumph over the insidious “Israel Lobby.”
The Red State article points out the rather inconvenient truth that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where one can be openly gay and not be subject to official sanction. In all of the other countries in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas ruled Gaza Strip, that official sanction is execution.
A gay rights organization supporting the Palestinians against Israel is sort of like a group of African Americans supporting apartheid era South Africa or, perhaps, Jews supporting modern Iran. It is the sort of thing that makes one wonder about the paucity of sanity in the political arena.
Mind, there is more than just a hint of anti Semitism here, with the dark hints of the power of the “Israel Lobby” and the very use of the word “apartheid” to describe the state of Israel, the only country in the Middle East where people of all faiths and races have civil rights.
One can only suspect that a group calling itself “Queer” supporting regimes where gay people are executed just for being gay has an agenda that may run contrary to supporting the right of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered (GLBT) people to exist unmolested. The agenda has more to do with opposing the West, hating America and Israel, and the psychological joy of acting out in the streets than advancing gay rights.
It may seem remarkable for people living in the United States who are upset about the fact that gay people cannot marry a person of their own gender or serve openly in the military, but there are countries around the world where gay people cannot live. Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once observed that “there are no gay people in Iran.” That may well be true, if one added the adjective “openly.” Gay people in Iran are made to walk up the tall ladder and drop down the short rope.
Rather than smear Israel with anti Semitic ranting about “apartheid”, people who have a true interest in human rights should praise the one state in the Middle East that does not practice discrimination.
Source: We’re Here, We’re Queer and We’re in Abject Denial, Lori Ziganto, Red State, June 26th, 2010
