On October 10-16, 2009, the International Gay
and Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) is planning to hold a tourism conference in
Tel Aviv, Israel, aimed at boosting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
leisure tourism to Israel. The audience of this conference is expected to be made up
mostly of travel agents who specialize in promoting LGBT tourism. With this
conference IGLTA, in cooperation with an Israeli LGBT organization, the Aguda, will
give its symbolic and financial support to a state that continually occupies,
oppresses and dispossess millions of Palestinians and murders and imprisons many
thousands of them.
We, queer activists and groups, call
on LGBTQI people and friends around the world to join us in
our protest against IGLTA’s promotion of
leisure tourism to apartheid Israel. We demand that IGLTA cancel its planned
conference in Israel and cease any promotion of tourism to this
country.
For some time now, Israeli officials and
organizations such as the Aguda, who are cooperating closely with IGLTA, have been
promoting LGBT tourism to Israel through false representations of visiting Tel Aviv
as not taking sides, or as being on the “LGBT” side, as if LGBT lives were the only
ones that mattered. It is implied that it’s okay to visit Israel as long as you
“believe in peace,” as if what is taking place in Palestine/Israel is merely a
conflict between equals, rather than an oppressive power relationship. Consistent
with globalization’s tendency to distance the “final product” from the moral
implications of the manufacturing process, LGBT tourists are encouraged to forget
about politics and just have fun in a so-called gay-friendly city.
This Zionist propaganda disguises the reality
of anti-LGBT violence. Last month’s Tel Aviv shooting in a gay center has reminded
us that it is not as friendly as it is depicted to be. Since that attack, numerous
reports have been released on the prevalence of violence against LGBT people in
Israel, including a state official report suggesting that “80% of gay teens in
Israel suffer some sort of sexual orientation-related abuse” (Ynetnews.com).
Even more importantly, Tel-Aviv’s flashy
coffee shops and shopping malls, in contrast with the nearby deprived Palestinian
villages and towns, serve as evidence that the Israeli society, just as the Israeli
state itself, has built walls, blockades and systems of racist segregations to hide
from the Palestinians it oppresses. The intersection of physical and societal
separations and barriers have justly earned the term apartheid, referring to an
historically parallel racist regime in South Africa against the indigenous Black
population of that country. Leisure tourism to apartheid Israel supports this
regime. It is not neutral, and it certainly is not a step toward real peace, which
can only be based on justice.
We encourage people to visit Palestine and
join Palestinians in solidarity with their popular struggle. A number of
organizations are doing this, including International Solidarity Movement, Palestine
Solidarity Project and International Women’s Peace Service. This clearly is not what
IGLTA is doing. Instead, by its actions, IGLTA calls on our communities to turn our
backs on the oppression of Palestinians, and to ignore a specifically effective
Palestinian popular non-violent initiative – the BDS movement.
On July 9th 2005 171 Palestinian civil society’s
organizations issued a statement calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions
against Israel. These measures are to be applied until Israel meets its obligation
to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and
fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of
all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the
Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the
rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated
in UN resolution 194 (http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52).
In recent months, especially after the
murderous assault on Gaza, the BDS movement is gaining momentum worldwide. New
groups are forming and many have implemented successful non-violent protest actions
around the world. These actions inspire us for what is to come. By supporting BDS
now, we can have a significant impact on the overall struggle for justice in
Palestine. We urge LGBTQI people and friends around the world to endorse the
Palestinian call and to join this particular action of solidarity and
protest.
TAKE ACTION
Please email International Gay and Lesbian
Travel Association, calling on it to cancel its planned conference in Israel and any
promotion of tourism to this country. You can compile your own letter or use the
sample letter below.
Please email your letter to
all management
and staff members of IGLTA:
john@iglta.org, richard@iglta.org,
deven@iglta.org, usa@iglta.org, tom@iglta.org, aaron@iglta.org, europe@iglta.org,
australia@iglta.org, newzealand@iglta.org, caribbean@iglta.org,
latinamerica@iglta.org, argentina@iglta.org, brazil@iglta.org, canada@iglta.org,
france@iglta.org, germany@iglta.org, greece@iglta.org, israel@iglta.org,
lebanon@iglta.org, mexico@iglta.org, poland@iglta.org, southafrica1@iglta.org,
southafrica2@iglta.org, spain@iglta.org, sweden@iglta.org, switzerland@iglta.org,
turkey@iglta.org, uk@iglta.org, usa@iglta.org
(John Tanzella, Executive Director; Richard
Brower, Strategic Development & Marketing Manager; Deven Chism, Administrative
Assistant; Babs Daitch , Special Projects; Ann Corbitt, Event Planner; Tom Nibbio,
Manager – Partnership Development; Aaron Riggins, Manager – Membership
Development; Carlos Kytka, Manager – Europe; Mark Proffit, Australia / New
Zealand Ambassador; André Rojer, Latin America Ambassador; Alfredo Ferreyra,
Argentina Ambassador; Clovis Casemiro, Brazil Ambassador; Canadian Gay & Lesbian
Chamber of Commerce , Canada Ambassador; Clark Massad, France Ambassador; Edwin
Brown, Germany Ambassador; Andreas Balakakis, Greece Ambassador; Shai Doitsch,
Israel Ambassador; Bertho Makso, Lebanon Ambassador; Ron Kuijpers, Mexico
Ambassador; Piotr Wojcik, Poland Ambassador; Adriaan Coetzer, South Africa; Brian
Kruger, South Africa Ambassador; Juan A. Carmona Del Solar, Spain Ambassador; Tobias
Holfelt, Sweden Ambassador; Spyros Petridis, Switzerland Ambassador; Mustafa
Kartopu, Turkey Ambassador; Darren Cooper, United Kingdom Ambassador; Babs Daitch,
United States of America Ambassador)
Source: http://www.iglta.org/staff.cfm
Sample Letter
Dear International Gay and Lesbian Travel
Association management and staff members,
It was brought to my attention that your
organization, IGLTA, is planning to hold a conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, between
October 10th, 2009 and October 16th, 2009, aimed at boosting LGBT tourism to
Israel. As someone who believes in protecting human rights, I am disturbed by your
attempt to promote leisure tourism to apartheid Israel. I plead with you to distance
yourselves from Israel’s crimes. Please cancel the conference, along with any other
promotion activity on your behalf of tourism to Israel.
Just as I consider LGBT rights to be a human
rights issue, the rights of Palestinians are a human rights issue as well. I reject
any attempt to depict Tel Aviv as separate from Israel, the state that it is, to a
large extent, sustaining. Given the continued occupation, colonization and
oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel, it seems to me awful and
hypocritical to promote leisure tourism to its largest and richest city in the name
of LGBT human rights. In an environment of racist segregation, as imposed on the
Palestinians by the annexation wall and other fences and blockades, leisure tourism
promotion to Tel Aviv and Israel is especially harmful and morally corrupt.
The extent of Israel’s oppression of the
Palestinians, and its long duration, require that organizations and businesses be
wary of connecting themselves with it. In the territories occupied in 1967, unarmed
Palestinians, including teenagers and children, are routinely shot and imprisoned by
the Israeli army. Israeli forces routinely destroy people’s homes, confiscate their
land and resources, discriminate against Palestinians in their access to water, and
restrict their everyday movement between Palestinian towns and villages. Millions of
Palestinian refugees and their descendants are prevented from returning to their
homes and hometowns, many living in refugee camps without any compensation for their
continued loss and suffering. In only the three weeks of its most aggressive
military offensive on Gaza, the Israeli army killed more than 1400 Palestinians,
wounded thousands of people and destroyed the houses of tens of thousands of
people.
Since IGLTA, in its activities, is providing
symbolic as well as financial support to Israel, I see it as inevitable to connect
IGLTA to such atrocities. Only by abstaining from dealing with Israel can you
distance yourselves from such moral corruption and the rightful criticism that will
come with it.
Sincerely,
Your
name
Your city and country of residence
