The attorney general of Israel ruled last week that gay couples will be allowed to jointly adopt children that are not biologically linked to either partner. Menachem Mazuz announced that there was no legal basis for differing treatment of gay couples to straight couples.
Meanwhile, is there any doubt about how, in a future Palestinian state, gays will be treated? If not subject to execution as in Iran, they'll certainly be subject to arrest, as in Egypt. (Awhile back, Paul Varnell wrote about the persecution of gays by the Palestinian Authority, as did Jamie Kirchick.)
But try telling that to San Francisco-based QUIT! (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism). Or, for that matter, to those Methodists and Presbyterians who urge divestment from corporations doing business in Israel - a stance that joins old-time Christian anti-Semitism with progressive scape-goating of the Jewish state (and yes, I'm sure some of their very best friends in the anti-globalization league are from families of the Hebrew persuasion).
One hopeful sign: Gay Middle Eastern bloggers in countries including Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain and Morocco are risking their liberty and lives to speak out.
20 Comments for “Israel Stands Out”
posted by joe perez on
Of all the potential arguments for or against a Palestinian state, the notion that the US should oppose Palestine because they are less progressive than Israel on gay rights had never occurred to me. I suppose you have a point somewhere, something about Palestine’s human rights record being a relevant consideration for US foreign policy. But it gets lost somewhere in the right-tilted snark.
posted by Bobby on
US foreign policy does encourage for a palestinean state. However, there are several issues to be resolved before that happens. That’s what the Europeans refuse to understand. Frankly, europeans don’t get it because they don’t have to deal with suicide bombers.
posted by Pat on
As a supporter of Israel, I also support a Palestinean state. I’m just waiting for the Palestineans to cut the crap. Or at the very least, as Golda Meir said, love their children more than they hate Israel.
posted by Andre on
Pat, I suppose your Mrs Meir expressed that bathetic notion in what we used to know as “your basic 300-word Golda Meir vocabulary” when I lived in Palestine – under her watch – trying to learn Hebrew. Mrs Meir was a conservative, narrow-minded politician, who – in addition to her imperialist policies regarding Palestinians (whose very existence she outright denied) – maintained discriminatory policies against her own adopted country’s Sephardic-Jewish population, thereby giving rise to an Israeli Black Panther movement. For how many more decades will Israeli politicians – and their American Zionist handlers – keep talking about a “two-state solution” while maintaining a single state that most closely resembles South Africa back in the days of apartheid? It appears that the only solution Israel’s present government truly desires regarding Palestinians has been modeled on what was known as the “Final Solution.”
posted by Dave on
Ideologues rarely let reality affect their opinions. Whether they are Jews who wish to ‘prove’ their credentials to the left by seeking the end of the State of Israel, the Arab oligarchs ( of left, right and elected) who have learned well the politics of victimhood, or more old fashioned types of anti-Semites, it goes in the same direction. The myth that the destruction of Israel will solve their problems is so obvious, but scapegoating is also a time tested method by which those in power divert the peoples frustrations elsewhere.
And not insignificant to this discussion is the incredible oppression of Christian Arabs under the PLO and Hamas. Yes you can find deniers of this; I would too with a gun pointed at my children.
posted by Pat on
Andre, I’ll concede your points about Golda Meir, but the message stands. Israel has demonstrated consistently they want peace, and do not want the eliminate their Arab neighbors. So far, the same can’t be said for Palestine and other neighbors. As a Christian (with a quarter Arab ancestry) and a gay person, I would feel MUCH safer in Israel than I would in Palestine (or Syria or Iran).
posted by Andre on
Pat, that is what’s called moral relativism.
posted by Bobby on
Andre, are you a palestinean? Did you live in the occupied territories?
She did say:
“There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” (Sunday Times, June 15, 1969)
And frankly, I agree.
posted by Pat on
Andre, which part is moral relativism.
That Israel has demonstrated they want peace, and Palestine and other neighboring countries don’t?
That Isreal does not want to eliminate their neighbors, but some of their neighbors seek to eliminate Israel?
That I would feel safer in Israel, than I would in Palestine and some of the other neighboring countries?
posted by Andre on
No, I am not Palestinian, and I am not even “quarter-Arab” like Pat, nor do I care to think of myself as anything more specific than homo sapiens, which is what I write on questionnaires under “Race.” Admittedly, Dr Goebbels would not have been happy with the terminology, nor would Israel, i.e., the Jewish State. So, it is “more democratic” than the countries around it? Granted. In Israel they don’t throw gay people off a cliff, like they do in Iran? Hats off! (No pun intended.) As far as the question of whether there is such a thing as a Palestinian people? There might not have been one in 1969, when your Golda uttered that pithy statement, but there sure is one now, thanks to 40 years of apartheid and genocide perpetrated by Mrs Meir and her successors.
posted by Bobby on
Andre, a french name. The french happen to be the #1 enemies of Israel now. It’s not surprising considering what they did to Dreyfuss. Israel doesn’t have apartheid, there’s no bathrooms for muslims and bathrooms for Israelis, palestineans cross the border every day to go to work. Those who are israelis-arabs have full equality, including the right to vote and elect arab representatives.
How convenient that you’d forget that Meir had to deal wtih the Yom Kippur war, the equivallent of attacking the arabs during the month of ramadam, something Israel has never done.
Of course, to people like you, it’s genocide if you defend yourself and it’s justice if you die.
posted by Richard on
Once again, the LGBT-right wing has decided to engage in baseless racism, and dishonest arguments.
Yes, Israel has a wonderful human rights record, compared to much of its neighbors. This is not too suprising given that it is an industrial, developed, democratic nation. They also have a long political history with center-left and democratic leftists parties.
However, its human rights record regarding its Arab minority and the Palestininean people is not so wonderful. The fact that some people oppose human rights violations in one area, does not mean that they support violations in another area.
People can oppose the Israeli governments polices in one area, but support them in another.
posted by Karen on
“People can oppose the Israeli governments polices in one area, but support them in another.”
WHAT?!?! A nuanced position that does not take absolutist stances? This will not be tolerated.
posted by Michael C. on
I have to wonder why none of the “Palestinians” arab-neighbors/backers want them to come into their countries either? Could be it be because they act like disruptive, temper-tanrum throwing little children. Israel will never give them enough, they only want Israel gone. It’s time Israel showed a harder stance toward the Palestinians instead of being so tolerant of their uncivilized disgusting behavior.
posted by Andre on
Dear Boby (if it can be “Dreyfuss,” you are Boby),
Thanks for all the laughs, I’ll remember you as the funniest guy since Mar
posted by Pat on
the Arabs started the 1973 war against Israel on the 10th day of Ramadan.
Whew! I’m glad that when Israel’s neighbors started their unwarranted act of agression on the holiest Jewish day, they did so during their holy month. That was neighborly of them.
As far as I’m concerned, that war was ancient history. It’s time to move forward. But it’s also time for the Palestineans to cut the war of words and the continued terrorist acts against Israel, and agree to Israel’s existence. I wouldn’t put it the way Michael C. said it, but the Palestinean’s behavior when Gaza Strip was ceded back to them was reprehensible.
posted by Bobby on
So Andrew, you don’t think it’s cowardly to attack a people when everyone is fasting and few people are guarding the borders?
But thanks for the info about the Ramadam War, funny, I guess muslims don’t respect their own religion. Ramadam is supposed to be a time of peace.
“it’s people like you who will do Israel in – with friends like you and your right-wing American cohorts, Israel needs no enemies.”
—Actually, without people like me, Israel would be all alone. Leftwingers hate Israel because they live in a theoretical world where the solution for conflict is love and understanding. According to them, Israel should just open the borders, tear down the walls, and let every suicide bomber come in and go “boom.” You know, Tibet used to be a free nation once, it was full of peace loving budhists, their military was outdated, the Dalai Lama tried to negotiate with the chinese, he tried to overlook China’s view of Tibet as a province. So when the chinese finally invaded, they where hopelessly outguned. Chinese soldiers raped nuns, killed monks, burned stores, and proceded to destroy thousands of years of tibetan tradition. Today the Dalai Lama lives in India, he can see Tibet from his home but if he comes back, he’ll get arrested and probably killed.
That’s what happens when you don’t take your enemies seriously. Now tell me, if guerrillas in Mexico decided to fire rockets into San Diego, how would you respond if you where Bush?
posted by Richard on
“Now tell me, if guerrillas in Mexico decided to fire rockets into San Diego, how would you respond if you where Bush?”
Probably declare that heaven was hiding WMD and declare war on it.
posted by Brian Miller on
I have to wonder why none of the “Palestinians” arab-neighbors/backers want them to come into their countries either?
Most of them work to exacerbate the suffering in order to blame it on other political parties. It has always been this way.
posted by Richard on
Also, the Palestinian government has a long reputation of being corrupt, mismanaged, short-sighted and inefficent.