What is pinkwashing?
Facing growing global outcry against its brutal occupation of Palestine Israel has launched a public relationship campaign to rebrand itself. It is spending considerable amount of money and resources to present itself as a safe-haven for gays and lesbians, as an anti-homophobic country. As part of that campaign Israel funds gay-themed films and sends these around the world, particularly aimed at audiences in the US, its biggest military and economic benefactor. Israeli consulates around the world fund gay/lesbian/trans activists to panels and seminars to promote Israel as a refuge for sexual minorities threatened by surrounding homophobic Arab countries.
The purpose of this is not to protect queers among the population controlled by Israel – after all queer Palestinians do not have a pink door in the apartheid walls that imprison them – but its primary goal is to rebrand the country as a tolerant one – to cover up the brutal repression suffered by Palestinians under the Apartheid regime.
QUIT is pinkwatching
We are also part of a growing international queer movement to stop “pinkwashing” by the Israeli government and its supporters. We will not allow the Brand Israel public relations campaign’s attempts to hijack the queer movement to promote ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. We are Pinkwatching and we will continue to act in solidarity with Palestinian queers and counter this brazen attempt to showcase the rights of queer Israelis as a cover to deny the basic human rights of millions of Palestinians and subjugate them to brutal repression.