There's been a bit of a kerfuffle recently regarding the decision by the New York City Gay and Lesbian Center to cancel an event to be held at the Center by an anti-Israel - or, if you prefer, pro-Palestinian - organization. The group, Siege Busters, is engaged in activism targeting the Jewish state, and specifically the military closure of the Gaza Strip.

Without going into the precise details - my own personal view is one of sympathy to both Israelis and Palestinians, and a desire for both nations to live in peace - this controversy raises some interesting issues.

First, given that gays and lesbians, to say nothing of transgender Americans, still labor under discriminatory laws, are we right to draw lines that cut us off from other oppressed peoples, which both Palestinians and Jews by any objective measure are?

Second, if we consider the passions stirred by this particular debate, which presumably obtain within the LGBT community as they do elsewhere, is it right for the Center to come down firmly on one side of it?

Third, what do we do with and about Palestinian queers, who come to New York City from one of the most extravagantly homophobic societies on earth expecting a safe harbor?

I'm not going to commend the Center on its decision or, for that matter, criticize it either. What's done is done. But it would behoove the Center, and all New Yorkers interested in its work, to give some more thought to the matters raised here.  read more »

I suspect this diary will not be popular, but I didn't start blogging to avoid controversy. Here in America, sentiment on the right almost exclusively supports Israel in the boarding of the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) flotilla and the violence that followed. Sentiment on the left almost exclusively supports the FGM. I have been trying to figure out the rights and wrongs and the legalities of the incident since it happened and it seems ambiguous all around (more on that below). But the incident itself is very simple: two sides (one heavily armed) engaging in brinksmanship with neither side willing to blink. The inevitable result of such brinksmanship will be the better armed side will ultimately succeed through brutal means.  read more »

David McReynolds, anti-warrior, professional pacifist and sometime Socialist Party candidate for President sent along this moving meditation on Gaza & Israel. It’s long, somewhat painful, but, in my view, worth reading.

Shiv'a in Gaza: December 2008
By Deb Reich

"My heart has been broken so many times", writes Alice Walker somewhere, "that it feels like an open suitcase with the wind blowing through it…" But maybe, she muses, hearts are made to be broken, and what is required of us is simply a steadfast acknowledgment: Open up and let the wind blow through; that's what hearts are for.

If so, Gaza 2008 is good cardiac training.

I am an American-Israeli Jewish woman of 60 living now in an Arab town in Israel and working for Jewish-Palestinian-Arab-Israeli reconciliation. I have two friends in Gaza and I will tell you how we came to be acquainted.

The first step was simply refusing to be enemies.  read more »

It is easy to feel horrifed at the images of Israeli planes hitting Gaza. But the context behind the attacks is that Gaza has been attacking Israeli civillians almost constantly since Israel withdrew from Gaza.

(House in Sderot hit by Qassem rocket, image from Bokertov.com)

(Injured woman in Sderot, image from BBC news)

I supported the withdrawal from Gaza. The dismatling of the illegal settlements in Gaza was a controversial move in Israel, but a necessary move. The withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza was also controversial, but necessary. Likud, the far right wing nut jobs of Israel, predicted that Israeli withdrawal from Gaza would result in increased attacks on Israel from Gaza.  read more »

Updated Dec. 6, with video link post jump.

Envy, we’re told, is a sin. I’m full of it. I lust for recognition as an enemy of the right. When, many years ago, Mr. Nixon’s enemies list came out, I and many of my cohort were were enraged. We were omitted from the list and we envied those who made it.

Recently events conspired to bring me back into touch with a former girlfriend. Catching up, complaining of the wear that time and children had worked upon us, she found something important to brag about.

Her brother – also a Jewish lawyer named Danny – active in favor of peace between Israelis and Palestinians, had been placed on a list of Self-Hating or Israel Threatening Jews (you can work out the acronym without help from me).  read more »