Queers for Palestine burst Pride

The annual Ottawa Pride rally was cancelled on Sunday after the group, Queers for Palestine, blocked the parade, owing to the refusal of the organizers, Capital Pride, to agree to the demands of “pro-Palestine” activists. Among the demands was for Capital Pride to back a complete boycott of Israel, and for Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe to apologize for not attending last year’s parade, which was described by Jewish groups as more a ‘protest against Israel’ than a rally for LGBT rights.

Regardless of one’s position on the conflict, for supposed human rights activists in a North American capital city to successfully hold the rights of the local gay community hostage to developments in the Middle East, is illustrative of the state of activism in the West and the succumbing of local authorities to “pro-Palestine” thuggery. Not only is there nothing “pro-Palestine” about insulting queer Palestinians by glorifying their jihadist persecutors Hamas, whom Gazans have been protesting against for years, but it takes a colossal lack of introspection to demand that an LGBT rights movement call for the boycott of a state that does a much better job of safeguarding those very rights than anyone in that far-away region of focus.

Perhaps what busts the gauge on the hypocrisy-meter is the silence of groups such as Queers for Palestine on the single largest threat facing LGBT rights in the world today.
One is unlikely to find, for instance, anywhere on the Instagram page of Queers for Palestine-Ottawa that Islam is the sole religion and organized ideology in the world today that still codifies death for homosexuality, with over 10 Muslim-majority countries upholding the capital punishment, and numerous others mandating caning or harsh prison sentences for the “crime” of being queer.

When certain Jewish groups found last year’s Capital Pride statement on Israel to be “antisemitic”, they chose to boycott the rally, a right Queers for Palestine could have exercised this year. There are numerous pro-Palestine demonstrations taking place across the West, including in Ottawa, where these activists can register their protests against Israel, without harming the rights of those very people they are using to propel themselves into recognition.

The histrionics of the current pro-Palestine groups in the West are even alienating those who have for long stood for Palestinian rights, with many LGBT activists in Ottawa accusing Queers for Palestine of “hijacking” the movement.

Queers for Palestine of Ottawa should ask themselves why there is no Queers for Palestine in any of the Arab states? Why do Gulf monarchies not allow any public pro-Palestine or anti-Israel rallies, at all? Why isn’t Queers for Palestine protesting against the Arab states, including Israel’s neighboring states of Jordan, Egypt, and Syria that have aligned themselves with Israel’s security policies and want to have nothing to do with the Palestinians?

In fact, one is freer to demonstrate for Palestinians, including queer Palestinians, in Israel more so than Arab states, as evidenced by the ongoing protests in Tel Aviv.

Surely Queers for Palestine should have a word or two to say about Saudi Arabia? Saudi has not only hanged and lashed members of the LGBT community, but has more Muslim blood on its hand than any non-Muslim state, having long used Palestinian lives to propel Salafi jihad around the world.

There should also be some self-reflection over evident Muslim hostility towards the queer community in the West, whether it’s the U.S.’s first Muslim-led city council banning pride emblems in Hamtramck or Muslim parents rallying for LGBT erasure in British school curricula, or Muslim kids being asked to stomp on pride flags in Canada.

But, of course, instead of protesting against these unsavory views, policies, regimes and groups, Queers for Palestine are misusing the freedoms of the West to champion the Islamists who hold them. Israel fits a one-point agenda for these activists who seek to paint Jews as the perpetual aggressors and Muslims as the perennial victims. Unfortunately, they have fallen too far deep in narcissistic echo chambers to realize that their anti-Israel, and often anti-Jewish, hysteria, is doing absolutely nothing to help the real queers of Palestine who are being persecuted and killed by Hamas.