Shallow Queers

Why would LGBTers want to side with Hamas, which oppresses queers like crazy, and march under the banner, the Big Lie, of Israel being an apartheid state? Robert Wistrich answers that question in his book, A Lethal Obsession. (Of the dozens of books I have read on the subject of Jew-hate, it may well be the most insightful--and is by far the most depressing):

The reality is the South African apartheid never had anything in common with Israeli democratic structures, with the ethos of Israeli society, or with its fundamental values. In an apartheid Israel, Muslim Arab voters and legislators could never influence the outcome of elections as they have often done in the past. The country's literary prize would never have gone to an Arab. Road signs throughout Israel would not be indicated in Arabic as well as in Hebrew and English. Nor would the Jewish state open its universities to Arab students, let alone permit viscerally anti-Israeli human right organizations to operate freely within its borders. In an apartheid state, there would never be articles galore in the Israeli press about the Zionist project being a failure--some of them writen by Arabs as well as Jews. A so-called Zion-Nazi or apartheid state would hardly bother to translate hostile Palestinian authors, such as Edward Said, into Hebrew. Nor would such a Nazified state permit its supreme court to consistently defend the human rights of Israeli Arabs and Palestinians against army interventions or considerations of national security. Yet the intellectual shallowness and mendacity of the apartheid comparison has in no way limited or prevented its broad acceptance. Indeed, the Zionism=Apartheid equation has turned into a kind of litmus test for defining individual membership in the so-called progressive camp.

Congratulations, queers! You passed the test with flying colours.

Update: David Solway has it right--Jew-hate is a sickness.

Update: This letter--a still, small voice of reason--appears in the current issue of NOW Magazine:

Queers taking Pride for ride

While I oppose Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians and support the right of groups to express their opinion, I wonder why there isn’t a group called Queers Against Islamic Homophobia and whether or not they would be allowed to march in the parade.

After all, the imprisonment and murder of gays across much of the Muslim world is surely more relevant to Pride than the Palestinian conflict.

But instead of sticking up for gay rights, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid wants to use Pride to rail against the only state in the Middle East where gays are treated as human beings. Mind-boggling.

Jan Burton
Toronto

While I oppose Jan's opposition, I applaud his/her willingness to tell it like it is.