Tearing Down Fences: Queer Activism in Israel/Palestine (a report-back)

"Tearing Down Wall"

Scores of people attended "Tearing Down Walls" at the New College of California Saturday to view a slideshow about queer activism in the occupied territories of Palestine. When the video projector didn't work, featured speakers Dalit Baum, PhD, and Mazen Nassar searched for connector cables and told stories to the appreciative crowd. Dr. Baum's stories described Black Laundry as a group of gay men, lesbian, and transgendered Israelis organizing support for Palestinian villagers. Black Laundry's direct and symbolic actions include both ideological critiques of religious militarism and logistical support to help provide access of food and water for people behind the twenty-five foot electrified wall that the Israeli state has constructed around the west bank.

The semi-improvised lecture demonstrated a queer ability to surpass technological impasses, both razor wire fences and uncooperative computer cables, with serious humor and broad appeal to many different groups.

Attendants visited information tables and signed up to continue meeting as a large group, with the hope to actually view the movie in a future forum. Sponsoring group representatives spoke with visitors and shared Palestinian olive oil, mock cosmetic packages, and a pledge to refuse Israeli citizenship. These groups include QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism <http://www.quitpalestine.org>), Renounce Aliyah, (<http://www.renouncealiyah.us>) and many more, some of whom displayed reports of direct actions against the "Apartheid Wall" which Dr. Baum also wanted to show. Speaking of the technical difficulty, Dr. Baum said, "You cannot imagine some of our best work if you cannot see it. I think we are very beautiful." While pictures may be worth a thousand words, the words themselves served just as well. The stories, accentuated by laughter, detailed mass actions of 5000 Women in Black marching in Jeruselem, tearing down roadblocks by hand, and identified twenty percent of the Isreali population as of mixed Israeli-Palestinian descent. The next hour and a half's talks crossed topics street actions, public oppositions, gender in militarized states, and multi-issue organizing for mutual aid.

In the interests of time and in the hopes of an accurate portrayal, let this article serve as a partial transcript of the night's events. Interested parties can view a full list of sponsors at the New College of California websiste. This article doesn't include details about QUIT's Estee Slaughter line of 'killer products - inspired by chairman Ron Lauder' (president of the Jewish National Fund), proposals for a Challenging White Supremacy workshop, or many details about Black Laundry's poultry costumes. This essays sets out to organize some of the speech's text into a concise format, point towards queer theoretical parallels, and leave off with suggestions for SF activists already committed to fabulous theatrics for social justice.

Dr. Baum
On the topic of

ACTION TACTICS
and

straight street demos:

"You couldn't hear or see anything about it in the media...even moderate left groups said, 'You're still here? We didn't know..." we were doing it again, and again, every week for sixteen years...we figured out that we needed to do something else."

pride march, jeruselum, banner: "no pride in occupation"



- "we found that one good way to get into the media was to use lesbians. And this is good, because it's one resource we have a lot of."

- "if you have a short message, write it across your breasts. Unfortunately, this only works for biological women."


re: commercialized pride



"[Israeli] pride was commercialized very quickly...[Black Laundry] pushed shopping carts full of used tear gas grenades from Ramallah...we had little stickers saying, 'Souvenier from the Occupation," and, we wanted to sell them [Laughter]. We wanted to make some money...and of course, anybody with a shopping cart got arrested. Police told us, 'you can't have these things, they're dangerous,' and so of course, we said, "if they are so dangerous, why do you throw them at people?'"

beauty pageants

faux femme drag "all the connections: dieting, hunger, war..."

southern israel - conservative city

- red carpet on main square - invite people to walk on it

"and then they ask who you are, and you say, 'of course, we are lesbians and gay men against the occupation."

OPPOSITIONS

from GLBT groups


"'You're ruining it for everybody..."
"'You're bringing back the image of angry, irresponsible, not respectable [queers], and whatever you do reflects on us, because we are gays and lesbians.'"


(GLBT presentations to get queer youth in military)

"There are no such meetings anymore, because we ruined it. We went to protest it."

in summary:


"I'm not saying that their opposition isn't legitimate. There is some truth to it...but [the conflict] is important. Because it is taking the movement onto the next stage of civil rights discussion, and not just focused on gays."

from radical left


"'You're playing into their hands. It's not just a coincidence that you're getting all the media. You are seen as weird, you are obviously marginal, so they are saying that [the opposition] is all weird and marginal.'"

MULTI-ISSUE ORGANIZING

"[Black Laundry] agreed not to have an agenda. We only agree on actions..."


- with muslim groups

"When we are not invited to palestinian, muslim places, we do not go, because we are not settlers." (Independence day action)

"'What are you doing here? Go home and change your government.'" (Palestinian sewing collective member)

"We don't represent anybody besides ourselves..."

- regarding direct and symolic tactics

"We are part of a big movement that is doing many different things. When you do direct action, you know you are doing something."

"Great! He can do that here. He can't do that anywhere else besides here." (connect environmental degradation, animal rights, and militarism)

- some say the more issues you take on, the more people you lose. Dr. Baum says the more issues you include, the more people you gain.


GENDER and MILITARY

"the thing about a very militarized society is that it is also very gendered. Men should be soldiers, and women should be soldiers' mothers."

"There was one woman standing at the side of us and she shouted one word for two hours. She shouted, 'Lesbians!'...There was this huge, diverse crowd (women, men, transgenders), and all she saw was lesbians. And I tell this story to give her credit, because she gave us the idea."


Dr. Baum opened the talk with this story about the origins of Black Laundry, and closed the night with the story about an International Solidarity Movement encampment at the base of the wall under construction. The contrast between very visible, symbolic, costumed demonstrations and the measured, deliberate steps people took to feed palestinians behind the wall was striking. "It was a great privilege to be there," Dr. Baum said of the ISM camp. "It was just a place where people were living together on the land. All the actions come from the villagers, and Israelis are invited." The democratic framing of the camp's food transport questions the efficacy of symbolic actions perpetuated 'in the name' of people not involved in the organization. Dr. Baum's speech clarified that while direct actions showed the most clear results, symbolic acts necessarily involved more privileged Israelis in recognizing the extent of their personal responsibility and maintaining a format for them to sustain collective activity.

This theoretical split matters to queers in the San Francisco Bay Area who identify as neither Arab nor Jewish yet still consider themselves affiliated with the intents, goals, and purposes of the International Solidarity Movement. "Tearing Down Walls" effectively went through identity politics to align homosexuality and human rights that go beyond militarized nation-states. "Young queers are very vulnerable to the collapse of these structures," Mazen declared. The night's reports, testimonials, and audience participation showed how human rights to cultivate love and land depends on a collective right to self-determination. In closing, the organizers referenced South African's post-apartheid government as an example of how oppositional groups with integral queer alliances have incorporated homosexual rights into their constitution.

This state-based conclusion doesn't necessarily satisfy the aims that Black Laundry organizers and New College audience participants propose. While any one statement only begins to approach an appropriate representation, Dr. Baum's response to a querent's challenge may very well indicate an invested interest that motivates actions for a single state. "People ask me," Dr. Baum said, "as an Israeli, lesbian, Ashkenazi Jew, do you really want to live in a Middle Eastern country? The only answer that I can give comes from the work that I do from this group. It is a very embodied answer. I'll be living with six impassioned activists - and maybe we'll have sex."