Queers Against Israeli Apartheid

QuAIA URGES GAYS: DON’T BE USED TO PINKWASH APARTHEID — BOYCOTT GAY TOURISM TO ISRAEL.

At Toronto Pride today, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) dropped a giant banner reading “Support Palestinian Queers–Boycott Israeli Tourism”.

“We’re drawing attention to Israel’s use of LGBT rights as a propaganda tool to justify apartheid policies and the occupation of Palestinian territories,” said QuAIA spokesperson and longtime gay rights activist Tim McCaskell. “We’re saying to queer people, respect yourselves and others. Don’t be used. Don’t pinkwash apartheid. Boycott gay tourism to Israel until it ends its apartheid policies.”

In June of 2010, Palestinian Queers for BDS (PQBDS), a Palestinian queer group with members throughout Israel/Palestine, including the occupied territories, called on queers worldwide to boycott Israel. In March of this year, PQBDS specifically called for a boycott of gay tourism to Israel.

On April 13 of this year, the city manager presented his finding that the term “Israeli apartheid” did not contravene city policy or any Canadian law, and that its use by a participating organization should not be used to defund Pride Toronto. His report was accepted unanimously by city council. Exonerated by the report,on April 15, QuAIA told Rob Ford and Giorgio Mammoliti to find another pretext for their homophobic attacks on Pride. QuAIA committed to not marching in the 2011 Pride parade, but to engage in other activities during Pride Week. In the leadup to Pride, QuAIA hosted two events with renowned Jewish lesbian activist Sarah Schulman, and held a screening of queer films on Palestine. In previous years, QuAIA has fielded the largest contingent in the Pride parade, including a who’s who of queer activists and leaders of all generations.

Wed June 22 Gladstone Hotel 1214 Queen St W

Legendary dyke activist Sarah Schulman will give a public talk followed by conversation with Trish Salah, spoken word performance by Areen, and a preview of Mike Hoolboom‘s film-in-progress, Lacan Palestine

8-10pm (pwyc)

live performances by SoliRose, Wolf J, Light Fires, and Lady Gefilte & Miss Fluffy Souffle, followed by a night of dancing to the sounds of Casey Mecija (DJ Masarap/ of Ohbijou) and Anni Spadafora (DJ Mama Knows/of GET IT| GOT IT | GOOD) and an interactive projection installation from mixMotion.com

10-2am ($10 suggested)

ASL Interpretation available upon request. Please contact quaia.toronto@gmail.com by Thursday June 16.

This Event is Wheelchair Accessible

Bios:

Sarah Schulman is a novelist, playwright, journalist and activist. A co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers, which organized the first Dyke March, and of MIX New York Queer Experimental Film Festival, she was a member of ACT UP and a principal historian of the AIDS movement. In 2010, at the request of Palestinian and Israeli academics, Sarah joined the “Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions” campaign and declined an invitation by Tel Aviv University. Instead, she went on a solidarity visit to Tel Aviv, Ramallah and Haifa, and later arranged a US tour for Palestinian queer activists. Sarah is Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at City University of New York, College of Staten Island

Trish Salah is a Toronto-based writer and activist, and a research fellow at Concordia University’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute. She has been active in organizing around a range of issues, including Palestinian solidarity, sex workers’ rights, anti-racism and anti-capitalism, employment security and healthcare for transsexual and transgender people. Her first book of poetry, Wanting in Arabic, was published by TSAR Books in 2002. Her new manuscript, “Lyric Sexology,” is near completion.

Mike Hoolboom’s experimental films and videos have appeared in over 400 international festivals and have garnered 30 awards. His films Frank’s Cock and Letters from Home, based on Vito Russo’s AIDS manifesto, both won best short film at the Toronto International Film Festival. He is the author of The Plague Years and The Steve Machine, and has edited several books on Canadian media art.

An Evening with acclaimed lesbian novelist, playwright, and activist Sarah Schulman in conversation with Now Magazine’s Books and Entertainment Editor, Susan G. Cole.

Sarah Schulman, is co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers, the organizers of the first Dyke March, and of MIX NYC, New York’s Queer Experimental Film Festival. A member of ACT UP and a principal historian of the AIDS movement, she is also an acclaimed novelist playwright and activist.

Susan G. Cole, writes for Now Magazine in Toronto, and is also a playwright and author. Together they will engage in a conversation about Schulman’s writing and activism in the Queer community over the last thirty years.

The conversation will focus on how ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was effective in forcing governments and societies to change their views and responses to AIDS, and what contemporary activists can learn from this experience about how to be effective and build movements today.

As Co-director of the ACT UP ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Schulman will also show a short sneak preview of Jim Hubbard’s new feature film, UNITED IN ANGER:A History of ACT UP which will have its world premiere Winter 2012.

Where: Bell Lightbox Theatre, 350 King Street West

When: Thursday June 23, 2011, 9:00 pm

Cost: Pay what you can
Co-sponsors: AIDS ACTION NOW!, Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange, Hot Docs: Canadian International Documentary Film Festival, Inside Out LGBT Film and Video Festival, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, Toronto People With AIDS Foundation

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (Toronto) joins with those expressing disappointment in the International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organization. To accept Israeli government money to hold its General Assembly in Israel despite the international call for boycott until Israel complies with international law is a betrayal of the IGLYO mandate. This is especially disturbing given that the decision was made after appeals by Palestinian queer organizations to respect the boycott. They have made it clear that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is a major barrier to their work. The IGLYO has not only chosen a site inaccessible to them, but it has sent a message to queers throughout the Arab world that they are not part of our movement. In doing so, IGLYO increases their vulnerability, undermines their work and isolates them from the wider queer solidarity movement.

It is disingenuous to claim that the choice of Tel Aviv is a sign of neutrality in this conflict. IGLYO is in fact making itself complicit in Israel’s pinkwashing strategy: a PR campaign that uses Israel’s legal tolerance of queers to justify the violent apartheid system it forces Palestinians to live under. There are dozens of suitable locations around the world where IGLYO can hold its General Assembly. Until Israel respects international law and dismantles its apartheid system, Tel Aviv is not one of them.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) wishes to express its concern about attacks on queer institutions by the Israel lobby—most recently the LGBT Community Services Center in New York.

For the last two years, Toronto’s Israel lobby has been attempting to defund Pride Toronto and drive the organization into bankruptcy because of the presence of “anti-Israel messaging” in Toronto’s annual Pride parade. The Israel lobby has joined with homophobic city politicians to deny Pride Toronto public funding, and has pressured corporate sponsors to withdraw their support.

Now under the leadership of gay porn entrepreneur Michael Lucas, New York’s Israel lobby has succeeded in bullying the LGBT Community Services Centre using the same tactics. In response to threats against its funding, the Center recently announced an “indefinite moratorium” banning groups within the community that “organize around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Pro-Palestinian groups are the only target of this “moratorium.”

In forcing the Center to abandon its mandate to provide space for diverse LGBT community organizing, the Israel lobby has demonstrated its contempt for democracy and its unwillingness to engage in dialogue. The same lobbyists who claim to defend Israel because it is democratic and pro-gay are attempting to destroy queer institutions and stifle free speech. This is an irony that should not be lost on anyone in our communities.

QuAIA wishes to express its solidarity with groups banned from the LGBT Center in NY. We urge the Center to reverse its decision and to once again support free speech and a diversity of opinion in the community.

(For more information on the unaffiliated QuAIA NYC, see the group’s facebook page.)

QuAIA Deputation – Pride 2011 from John Greyson on Vimeo.

Vindicated by a City of Toronto report, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will hold its Pride Week activities outside of the parade, in a challenge to Mayor Rob Ford.

TORONTO — Following this week’s report from City of Toronto staff concluding that the term ‘Israeli apartheid’ does not violate the city’s anti-discrimination policy, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is announcing new plans for Pride 2011 that will pose a challenge for Mayor Rob Ford.

“Last year’s struggle was around censorship and our right to march in our community’s Pride parade,” says QuAIA spokesperson Tim McCaskell. “With the City report settling that debate, now is the time for us to move beyond the parade to build our community’s response to Israeli apartheid.”

Instead of marching as a contingent in the parade this year, QuAIA will focus its Pride Week activities on hosting a community event to raise awareness of Israeli apartheid, and how LGBTQ communities can pressure the Israeli government to comply with international law through the campaign for boycotts, divestments and sanctions. QuAIA will also continue to contest Israel’s “pinkwashing” campaign, which attempts to use LGBTQ human rights to obscure Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights.

QuAIA’s new plans will pose a challenge for Mayor Rob Ford, who announced that he would cut more than $100,000 in city tourism funding for Pride Toronto if QuAIA continued to march.

“Rob Ford wants to use us as an excuse to cut Pride funding, even though he has always opposed funding the parade, long before we showed up,” says Elle Flanders of QuAIA. “By holding our Pride events outside of the parade, we are forcing him to make a choice: fund Pride or have your real homophobic, right-wing agenda exposed.”

Media inquiries: quaia.toronto@gmail.com

Rob Ford’s record on Pride funding and other LGBTQ issues:

2005: Then-councillor Rob Ford said during a council debate, “I don’t understand a transgender… is it a guy dressed up like a girl or a girl dressed up like a guy?”

2006: Ford argued against city funding for AIDS prevention programs, saying, “If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn’t get AIDS probably, that’s bottom line.” He also voted against such programs in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.

2006: Ford was the lone vote against putting up three welcome banners over roadways for the 2006 International AIDS Conference being held in Toronto that year. The city did not require any extra funding to install those banners.

2010: Ford endorsed council candidate and fundamentalist pastor Wendell Brereton, who said, “My kind of Toronto doesn’t parade immorality and call it pride.” In endorsing Brereton, Ford said, “We’re together. We have the same thoughts.”

2010: During his mayoral campaign, Ford said, “I support traditional marriage. I always have.”

While trying to distance himself from homophobic attack ads, Ford called homosexuality a “lifestyle choice.”

2011: In February, Ford was the only member of council to vote against accepting $100,000 from the province to establish screening programs for syphilis and HIV.