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Will QUIT silence Palestinian Queer voices?
On silencing the Invisible men
Rumors abound that extremists from QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terror) are planning on disrupting tonight's showing of "The Invisible men" at the Frameline LGBT film festival. Premiered at the Amnesty International Film Festival (Movies that Matter) this film won the special jury award at the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival.
QUIT, along with the Arab Resource Organizing Center has picketed the film festival before, because they dare show Israeli films, and take support from the Israeli consulate to facilitate this. After several years of having their picket lines ignored by theater go-ers, QUIT organizers discussed ratcheting the pressure up a notch- by entering the theater and disrupting the film. They've already expressed their disdain for Frameline by vandalizing posters promoting the festival.
Just what are they blindly protesting against?
From the Times of Israel
The Invisible Men’presents the untold narratives of Louie, 32 years old, a gay Palestinian who has been hiding in Tel Aviv for the past 8 years; Abdu, 24 years old, who was exposed as gay in Ramallah and then accused of espionage and tortured by Palestinian security forces; and Faris, 23 years old, who escaped to Tel Aviv from the West Bank after his family tried to kill him.”
Asked about allegations of "pinkwashing" Yariv Mozer narrator, writer and film producer of the "Invisible men" replied
"I just don’t see the connection between gay rights and the occupation. The facts are that Israel is undoubtedly much more tolerant towards gay rights and against homophobia incomparably to the situation in the Palestinian occupied territories, as in the whole Arab world. Unfortunately, the Palestinian conservative society does not respect human rights in general, and that includes for example women rights and of course gay rights.
Another undeniable fact is that Palestinian people are still under the occupation in all of its faults.
I don’t think that there is an official Israeli policy to highlight gay rights in order to undermine the occupation and its consequences.
Abdu said a smart thing during one of our last screenings: the day the Palestinian people will liberate themselves, they will be liberated from the Occupation.
It’s a radical thing for a Palestinian to say, but it’s the smartest conception of the conflict."
Queers Undermining Israeli Terror haven't quite made the intellectual leap that there's a big difference between being pro-Palestinian and being anti-Israel. Will QUIT firmly establish itself as a hate group in the Bay area by silencing the already marginilized voices of Palestinian queers? Or will they ultimately chose to open their hearts and minds and actually listen to the stories of those they claim to support? We will find out this evening.
QUIT, along with the Arab Resource Organizing Center has picketed the film festival before, because they dare show Israeli films, and take support from the Israeli consulate to facilitate this. After several years of having their picket lines ignored by theater go-ers, QUIT organizers discussed ratcheting the pressure up a notch- by entering the theater and disrupting the film. They've already expressed their disdain for Frameline by vandalizing posters promoting the festival.
Just what are they blindly protesting against?
From the Times of Israel
The Invisible Men’presents the untold narratives of Louie, 32 years old, a gay Palestinian who has been hiding in Tel Aviv for the past 8 years; Abdu, 24 years old, who was exposed as gay in Ramallah and then accused of espionage and tortured by Palestinian security forces; and Faris, 23 years old, who escaped to Tel Aviv from the West Bank after his family tried to kill him.”
Asked about allegations of "pinkwashing" Yariv Mozer narrator, writer and film producer of the "Invisible men" replied
"I just don’t see the connection between gay rights and the occupation. The facts are that Israel is undoubtedly much more tolerant towards gay rights and against homophobia incomparably to the situation in the Palestinian occupied territories, as in the whole Arab world. Unfortunately, the Palestinian conservative society does not respect human rights in general, and that includes for example women rights and of course gay rights.
Another undeniable fact is that Palestinian people are still under the occupation in all of its faults.
I don’t think that there is an official Israeli policy to highlight gay rights in order to undermine the occupation and its consequences.
Abdu said a smart thing during one of our last screenings: the day the Palestinian people will liberate themselves, they will be liberated from the Occupation.
It’s a radical thing for a Palestinian to say, but it’s the smartest conception of the conflict."
Queers Undermining Israeli Terror haven't quite made the intellectual leap that there's a big difference between being pro-Palestinian and being anti-Israel. Will QUIT firmly establish itself as a hate group in the Bay area by silencing the already marginilized voices of Palestinian queers? Or will they ultimately chose to open their hearts and minds and actually listen to the stories of those they claim to support? We will find out this evening.
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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
(2006) Oneworld Publications, ISBN 978-1-85168-555-4
(Has full details on the 1948 to present mass murder of boys and men, rape and murder of girls and women and theft of Palestinian land all planned by David Ben-Gurion, first president of Israel, and cohorts, as Ben-Gurion described in his diary quoted in Pappe’s book.)
Israel-Palestine on Record by Howard Friel and Richard Falk
(2007) Verso, ISBN 978-1-84467-109-0 (Contains eyewitness testimony for 2000 to 2006 of Israeli destruction of Palestinian homes and the horrors of daily life in Occupied Palestine due to daily Israeli terrorism, all paid for with $6 billion US tax dollars annually, making Israel the 4th largest military gang in the world).
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/
Zionism in the Age of Dictators by Lenni Brenner at
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/
The Iron Wall by Lenni Brenner at
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/
The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman at
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/
Boycott, Divest, Sanctions Movement against Zionist Israel at
http://bdsmovement.net/
Gaza Freedom Flotilla
http://gazafreedommarch.org/cms/en/Solidarity.aspx
The Israeli Military State starts in childhood at:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/04/indoctrinating-israeli-youths-to-be.html
Israel’s nuclear war capacity and history of threatening the former Soviet Union in an excellent article by John Steinbach:
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/issues/policy/israeli-nuclear-policy/steinbach_israeli_program.pdf
51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis edited by Lenni Brenner
(2002) Barricade Books, New Jersey, ISBN 1-56980-235-1
The Transfer Agreement by Edwin Black
(1984, 2001) Carroll & Graf, NY, ISBN 0-7867-0841-7
The Third Reich and the Palestine Question by Francis Nicosia
(1985) University of Texas Press, ISBN 0-292-72731-3
Walled: Israeli Society at an Impasse by Sylvain Cypel
(2005, 2006) Other Press, ISBN 13:978-1-5905 1-210-4
(A good early history of the apartheid wall and history and contemporary life of Israel and its relationship to the US as a military base. The lack of separation of church and state is evident as “All Israeli students study the Hebrew Bible in public school for several hours a week, from the elementary grades through high school (knowledge of the Bible is tested on the high school exit examination.)” (p. 177) Superstition and militarism clearly go together This is a sign of an extremely backward society).
A Wall in Palestine by Rene Backman
(2006, 2010) Picador/St. Martin’s Press, NY ISBN 978-0-312-42781-8
(Good maps of the apartheid wall and description of resistance to it; it is clearly a land grab as there are means of going through wall and thus it has nothing to do with security; also describes segregated roads and racist license system).
An Israeli in Palestine by Jeff Halper (an American who moved to Israel in 1973 at age 27, is a professor of anthropology, is the leader of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Campaign against Israel described in Appendix 4). (2008) Pluto Press, ISBN 978-0-7453-2226-1. “There is not even a civil mechanism by which Jewish, Christian, and Muslim citizens of Israel can marry each other since personal status, citizenship, marriage, death, inheritance, is regulated by religious and not civil law.” p. 76
Palestine Inside Out by Saree Makdisi, (2008, 2010) Norton Press, ISBN 978-0-393-33844-7. With a beautiful foreword by Alice Walker, comparing the racist horrors of Zionist Israel to white racism in the USA, Makdisi, a Palestinian-American professor of English literature at UCLA, writes a detailed account of the daily horrors of life in Occupied Palestine. His periodic sections “By the Numbers” offer useful statistics, his maps are plentiful, and his entire book is a ringing indictment of the mental illness that is religion and the anti-women horror of theocratic states. As Americans read it, we must remember that this is all paid for with our tax dollars and supported 100% by every single Democratic and Republican politician at every level of government. It is opposed by all socialist parties and the Green Party.
Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Vol. 3 by Alan Hart (2005, 2010) Clarity Press, ISBN 0-932863-69-8/978-0-932863-69-0. Alan Hart, a former ITN (part of British news agency that produces outstanding Channel 4 of UK) and BBC Panorama correspondent, covers the horrors of Zionism in Israel and its relationship to the United States from 1967 to January 2010 from the perspective of a non-Jewish journalist perspective with lots of worthwhile insights.
DVD-Warner Classics: The Ramallah Concert: Knowledge Is The Beginning with West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim. Ramallah Concert program: Mozart Sinfonia, Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, Elgar’s Nimrod from Enigma Variations. Orchestra consists of young Jewish Israelis and Arabs of many countries, including Palestine, plus some Europeans.