|
no pride
no party
no celebration
while people are getting
death from the sky and the horror of chemical weapons -- Laura Corradi, Italy
IRAQI LGBT
Support Lebanon, Stop the inhumane and barbaric attacks...IRAQI LGBT calls for Boycotting the Jerusalem World Pride 2006.
IRAQI
LGBT London 19 July 2006
As the world stands silent against the intense raids and massacres towards
innocent Lebanese by Israel, at least 212 Lebanese - mostly civilians have been killed, 498 injured and made to suffer on
unjustified kind of violence since Israel launched attacks a week ago...
IRAQI LGBT condemned the inhumane and barbaric
attacks on Lebanon by Israel and its army. Lebanon will always remain the heart of freedom and liberation in the Middle East.
As we watch carefully the bleeding of Lebanon, we stand shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand to support Lebanon and call for
an end of the military operation against it...
We call for all LGBT world organizations to boycott Jerusalem World
Pride 2006, and support the Iraqi's, Palestinians and Lebanese in their struggle and call for the occupying Israelis government
to end their occupation and violence against innocent civilians. We also call for all the LGBT groups and organization to
support Helm the Lebanese LGBT organization. IRAQI LGBT supports the global movement to boycott Jerusalem World Pride 2006
as part of the international boycott of, and divestment from Israel.
IRAQI LGBT strongly condemns holding World Pride
in a city beleaguered by violence and conflict, and where the words "Love without Borders" belie a reality of separation,
ubiquitous borders, destruction of homes and livelihoods, land theft, gross human rights atrocities and violations, and the
apartheid policies of Israel.
We support the rights of all lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender people to love and
live in freedom and to demonstrate publicly to demand their rights. These rights should not be placed in competition with
the long struggle of the Palestinian people, including Palestinian LGBT people, for self-determination, for the right to return
to their homes, and the struggle against apartheid and the occupation of their lands.
IRAQI LGBT support ASWAT-the
Palestinian gay Women group decision on not to take part in the World Pride 2006. -- Iraqi
LGBT (click here to go to Iraqi LGBT and read their whole statement)
The racist, terrorist state of Israel is no place to hold World Pride. In
solidarity with LGBTIQ Palestinians and Lebanese we should absolutely boycott World Pride Jerusalem and call for an end to
this apartheid state. I we want to stand up to homophobia, we also need to stand up to racism and war! -- Madilyn
Gorman, Queer Officer at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
We firmly believe that the "Love Without Borders" is a contradiction in terms because Israel's militarized
checkpoints and concrete walls make the concept ridiculous for all Gays, Lesbians and Transgender people in Israel and the
rest of the world. Boycott travel to Israel! -- Lesbian and Gay Solidarity Australia
As much as I understand the desire for a world pride celebration, I cannot wrap my head around having in
a country where the occupants cannot move freely without harrassment. It was less than half a century ago that my own forebearers
could not move about the United States without having that right to move about questioned because of the color of their skin
(and it's still happening now - just in a different mode). It would be unconsionable for me to use my relative privledge as
an American citizen to travel to a country where this same kind of prejudice is being played out on a daily basis. Thus I
support the travel boycott to World Pride 2006.-Jacqueline, Oakland, CA, USA
As a gay rights campaigner I feel very sad your suggesting we should boycott World Pride in Jerusalem. Surely
there is no argument to support any more 'hate'. Please lets all work together to stop hate 'Everywhere'. I'm sorry Palestinians
have suffered,and i'm sorry Jews have suffered. I am gay and I have also suffered.'Lets live in a world exempt from 'HATE'.
Please Consider -- Gary Burns.Sydney Australia.
The world pride event set to happen in jerusalem - west jerusalem - is called
"love without borders." how ironic a title for such a thing occurring in a land where some people are free to move and others are not.and what a day they picked for the beginning: 6 august, aka:
hiroshima day. will there be a discussion of the bomb that devastated hiroshima that awful day in 1945? even more important,
will there be any talk about those in the west bank and gaza who can't attend because of the labyrinthine system of checkpoints
and walls and barriers meant to pen in palestinians. exactly what's to
celebrate?
So yes. boycott. and divest. and call for sanctions. -- Sue, Toronto,
Canada
The Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation of Palestine in Toronto (JWCEO) supports the call for
a boycott of world pride in jerusalem. we can't see having a celebration of queerness - lesbians, gay men, transgendered transexual
bisexual and intersexed people - in a country where gross human rights abuses occur on a daily basis in the form of house
demolitions, bombs dropped in the name of fighting terrorism, targetted
assassinations, destruction of olive and other fruit trees, checkpoints, the annexation wall...and the list
goes on.
We call on all queer organizations to boycott this event. having it in israel only lends legitamacy to their
inhumane treatment of the palestinian people.
Calling attention to homophobic practices in the west bank and gaza ignores the fact that homophobia knows
no borders. -- JWCEO
To celebrate Love Without Borders in a city ringed with checkpoints to keep
its natives divided and exiled is ludicrous! This event makes it appear that LGBTI people support the occupation and we should
do our best to show this support does not represent our entire community.
Im the grandson of German Jews, raised on stories of how relatives were
stripped of their citizenship, denied their professions, driven from homes to relocation camps, badgered and humiliated. The
Shoah overshadows the horrors that Jews suffered in Germany before the Wansee conference that initiated the Holocaust, but
Palestinians now endure the same treatment that our families endured in Germany in the late 1930s. As long as there is no
organized, massive genocide on the scale of the Shoah, and children and other innocents are only killed as collateral damage
or from malnutrition and lack of medical care due to the many checkpoints and curfews and other forms of economic strangulation,
yes, the Israeli government can honestly claim that they are better than the Nazis. But since when is better than the Nazis
an adequate standard?
That people are so abused in the name of Judaism disgusts and horrifies
me. We must oppose the abuse of Palestinians and support the boycott of Israel. As GLBT people who seek justice in the world
we must then support the boycott of World Pride in the occupied city of Jerusalem. -- Jack Fertig
It is truly a *shame* that the "pride" in Jerusalem is not explicitely in
solidarity with the right of Palestinians everywhere to self-determination, return to the original lands of Palestine, **and**
respect for sexual minorities.
I support the travel boycott because any lesser action would be complicit
in the ongoing genocide against Palestinians *and also* complicit in the destruction of the liberation focus of sexual minorities'
movements that are really only **strengthened** by refusing colonialism, in this case by the Israeli state and global capital.
Our common world is everywhere a place of struggle against capital and all
oppressions, so in the same way that the "pride" of my original birthplace of Vancouver, Canada is shamed by the participation
of police, capitalists, and those complicit in the genocide against the Indigenous nations in "Canada" -- http://sisis.nativeweb.org/actionalert/ -- so also is "world pride" an insult to our revolutionary, planetary refusal
of capital, colonialism, and aparthied in all their forms in every land, very much including Palestine. -- Chris, Toronto
The Committee endorses this statement and joins in the boycott of
the Jerusalem "World Pride". -- Committee of Arab and African Families United to
Survive AIDS
"As a gay American of Palestian extraction, I am glad that someone has challenged
the concept that world pride 2006 is Love without borders. For example, as westerners and Israelis party in Jersusalem, a
gay or lesbian living 5 miles away in Bethlehem would have no oppurtunity to attend or participate in World Pride events.
The Israeli sponsor, Jerusalem Open House, has carefully invited anti-Islamic bigots who write books like "The problem with
Islam" to be the respresent the Islamic view. In addition, JOH attempts to glamorize Israeli apartheid against palestine by
promoting the idea that Palestinian gays travel to Tel-Aviv to live a life unavailable in occupied Palestine which proves
the backwardness of Arab life. Little mention is given to the realities of occupation such as freedom of movement necessary
for gays and lesbians to find eachother. A simple google search of palestine and gay reveals the attempts of Israel and World
Pride sponsors to spread Islamophobia.
When Gays and Lesbians travel to Israel, they enrich a government
that makes no assumptions that all people are created equally. Israel creates ghettos and walls to enclose millions of people
deamed undesirable. As Lesbians and Gays, how can we ask for our basic human rights when we march and party with Israelis
in Jerusalem?" -- Chris, Portland OR
"I wholeheartedly support the boycott of World Pride Jeruselum 2006" --
Faisal A
"We must speak out for justice. The Palestinian people are sufffering daily.
There are good jewish people trying to help them. We must raise our voices against oppression and injustice inflicted on all
of us." -- Edward, Rosemead CA
"As an American who has lived in Palestine and experienced the
lack of freedom there, I heartily appreciate and support this initiative."
-- Katherine Metres Abbadi, Brooklyn, NY
[I'm] A Palestinian who can't go back to the house he was born-in in Jerusalem!
-- Mazen S.
World Pride in Jerusalem will be WONDERFUL for Jews and Palestinians ...its
a shame you are sitting on the sidelines for this. The five full time Palestinian staffmembers of the Jerusalem Open House
(the host group) are doing the hard work for the people in Palestinian communities from the center of the action: Jerusalem.
There will be peace and compromise one day through engagement and dialogue. -- Andrew M.
I would no more go to this Pride event than I would have done had
it been held in apartheid South Africa. Only international pressure stands any chance of forcing Israel to end its lawless
racist policies, and as governments are complicit with or indifferent toward the crimes against humanity of Sharon and his
ilk, for civil society to heed the call for a boycott of Israel goods and leisure tourism, divestment and sanctions is essential.
But I recognise that people may go in good faith believing they are expressing solidarity, and so I would urge them to find
out the truth of Israel's oppression of Palestinians: the ongoing ruthless process of the destruction of Palestine and ethnic
'cleansing' expulsion of its indigenous people since 1948, now culminating in the installation of apartheid bantustans on
the West Bank and the monstrous Wall. Integral to this is the attempt to annex Jerusalem, intensifying 1967's illegal military
occupation of East Jerusalem with denial of access to Palestinians, demolition of countless homes while extending huge illegal
colonies on stolen land, the daily gratuitous cruelty endured by the Palestinians. If we debate the issue of Worldpride in
full possession of the facts, I feel the ethical conclusion is that we must not boost the Israeli economy with tourism or
purchasing. Let us be inspired by Rachel Corrie and take a solidarity trip to occupied Palestine instead, to stand up for
all human rights. Peace and Justice -- Frankie, London England
Proud of what? Gay rights mean nothing if others are denied rights based
on ethnicity. There is nothing progressive about Israel. Gay rights come cheap when the occupation makes so much money. --
JB Beniet
The choice of Jerusalem as the site for WorldPride is naive and unacceptable--and
will result in an event that by nature of its site will exclude a large number of LGBTIQ people from around the world and
validate a reprehensible regime. The time to celebrate world pride in Jerusalem is when it truly becomes an international
city - belonging to people of all creeds, religions, backgrounds, cultures and sexualities. This is not that time. -- David,
Toronto
The English group
Outrage! and others who support the idea of going to Jerusalem have got it wrong. Long time ago Scottish queer activists took
the lead in ILGA (then IGA) in fighting moves to break the boycott of South Africa. Some people think having a party in the
sun is more important than racism. -- Brian Dempsey
In complete agreement. Tbere is no point seeking liberation for some at the expense of others. Besides being immoral
it is counter-productive! -- Paul Patrick, UK
This boycott moves gay people in the wrong direction. If you have
opnions about the situtation, I think it is better to go to Jerusalem and express them in Israel and in Palestine? I cannot
wait to meet the world gay family in Jerusalem in 2006, Christian, Moslem and Jewish. I pray that the people of Israel and
Palestine will have moved even closer to peace by then. If they have, it will be thanks to courageous moves on the part of
PM Sharon, Pres. Abbas and cooler heads on both sides of this solvable conflict who support compromise. That, of course, assumes
one wants compromise in this hundred year old cycle of killing. I am afraid that many on both sides still think in terms of
total victory or retribution. Which does your organization want? -- Andy - Washington,
D.C
"Standing in support of palestinian self-dermination means standing against the
economic foundation on which israel is able to continue its policies of mass destruction of palestinian land, resources, and
people. i refuse to participate in this event that promotes violence against women and violence against queer folks by financially
promoting a colonial and military violent agenda that is known as present day israel..." Clarissa
"No Pride in Occupation!!!!" -- Kimberly
As a queer Palestinian-American, outrage doesn't begin to express the thought of
World Pride in Jerusalem. The carelessness with which such spectacles endorse an evanescent feeling of so-called solidarity
is beyond comprehension. "Love Without Borders" is perhaps the most chilling title to an event that laughs in the face of
occupation, genocide, and disaster happening to Palestinians less than 10 kilometers from the proposed parade. Resist we must...
-- Farris
"'Love Without Borders'? Think again. What about the concrete cage surrounding
Palestinians? It is hardly "love without borders". It is racism of the highest order." -- May
"Congratulations on getting this boycott initiative together - Jerusalem is such an appalling choice of venue, exactly
the kind of endorsement the colonial power seeks - end the occupation! Justice for Palestine! Peace and Justice and civil
rights for LGBT Palestinians!" -- Diane Langford, Women's Officer, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, UK
"I just saw your call to boycott World Pride 2005, and wanted to thank you for
your courageous and principled stand. Given the disgraceful behaviour of the Israeli state, I fully support the boycott of
Israeli goods, events and services (I have in fact turned down publication of my novels in Israel on this basis) and consider
it an honour to stand with you on this issue. I appreciate that, given the homophobia of many in the Palestinian community,
the issue of Palestine/Israel may be somewhat difficult for progressive gays and lesbians. I have long been a huge admirer
of QUIT, particularly your absolute refusal to dilute or make 'conditional' demands for Palestinian emancipation, and your
scornful refusal to allow hypocritical pronouncements about gay rights
to undermine solidarity with an oppressed people. In my experience, not only
is that absolutely the correct position as regards the national rights of all Palestinians (gay and straight), but your critical-but-unconditional
support is also by far the most effective way of breaking down prejudice within the Palestinian community, some of whom
are doubtless surprised to find such radical supporters from within the gay community. In
solidarity, and with my very best wishes" -- China Mieville
There is no pride in the occupation. No borders between lovers, but ALSO, no borders
between PEOPLE! Tear down the apartheid wall. -- Aaron, Montreal
I commend you for your protest against gays organizing a Pride
March under circumstances where it is effectively closed to many members of our community who are prevented from attending
because of their religious identity. On the other hand, I am an Orthodox Christian, and although some of our people
are also prevented from attending, it is absolutely necessary for us not to be involved in the religious-political tensions
that are involved here. We cannot be drawn into the conflict on the pretext that manhy members of our community, who
should be permitted to attend, or alternatively, that the Pride celebration be held in some location that is relatively free
of the direct and specific religious-political tensions that centre in the city of Jerusalem. Whatever the outcome of
this, Orthodox Christian gays should not do anything in the matter of attendance or in giving consent to the specific religous-political
issues that would either involved us directly in the overall tensions or be remiss in our religious duty to give luke-warm
support to the government in power. I say this in sadness because I do care about the issues raised in the boycott statement,
but we must absolutely not be drawn either to one side or to the other of the issues involved. Praying that God
will somehow resolve the issues involved according to His good pleasure, I am, Your most humble and obedient servant
-- Vasilios
OPTICS- Organizing Pittsburgh to Increase Community Solidarity, whose members include
LGBT folks and activists whom have traveled to the Occupied Territories, strongly supports The Boycott of World Pride is Israel
and Condemns the Israeli government for its illegal and inhumane activities in Palestine. Please add our organization to the
list of endorsers -- Jonas
"INCITE! condemns "Israel's" apartheid racist colonization of indigenous Palestinian land and people. INCITE! condemns
the violence directed at Palestinian women and communities, including rape, torture, imprisonment, destruction of homes, and
the intentional maiming and murder of children in cold blood. INCITE! condemns the "Israeli" military's direct targeting of
pregnant women at checkpoints. INCITE! condemns these practices because they are part of "Israel's" larger project of ethnic
cleansing the Palestinian people. INCITE! also condemns "Israel's" colonial and racist violence because it gives rise to domestic
violence and sexual assault within Palestinian communities. We stand in solidarity with Palestinian women's resistance and
we support their struggle for a self-determined liberation."
"I think it is a bad idea to appeal to people asking them to boycott an event that was cancelled. People may think that
you may be out of your mind." -- Alex
Response: Jerusalem World Pride has been postponed, not cancelled, and is currently scheduled to
take place in August 2006.
"viva palestina libre! long live a free palestine!" -- Mahsoom Mohamed
|
