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LGBT community wakes up to the BDS evil among it

LGBT community wakes up to the BDS evil among it

“Anti-Pinkwashing” attack on Israeli Jewish Sabbath event in Chicago may be a watershed moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdAxvR_IzCI&feature=youtu.be

Columnist Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post has a rather extraordinary column on the “anti-pinkwashing” near-riot at the Creating Change conference in Chicago on Friday night, January 22.

The column is extraordinary in that it reflects a growing realization even in the mainstream media that the thin line between rabid anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has been crossed in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

We covered the situation in our post, Jewish Voice for Peace helps disrupt Israeli LGBTQ group Sabbath event, which has video and images, and explains the tactic:

The pinkwashing charge is essential for BDS on U.S. college campuses because BDS has trouble squaring its support for regimes (including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, not to mention most Arab countries) which abuse and persecute gays with BDS’s attempt to co-opt the progressive movement.

Hence, the pinkwashing claim that Israel’s promotion of its gay-friendly policies is actually a greater evil than the abuse heaped on gays in areas controlled by Israel’s enemies.

If you want to get a sense of how threatening the anti-Israel crowd was, view this video from a group that appears to support the protest. Imagine yourself in the conference room with hundreds of people screaming just outside the doors and trying to push their way past security. Also note the chants of “mic check” — a phrase made famous during the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Algemeiner magazine has a first-hand account:

“There were about 200 protesters outside the room. They blockaded the room, three of them entered the room, took over the stage, and the people from Jerusalem Open House were not allowed to speak,” explained Adrian Shanker, Executive Director of the Allentown, Pennsylvania-based, Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center. “They [Kala-Meir and Canning] were escorted out of the room so they would be safe, and we were all asked to leave through the service entrance for our safety.” …

“When you have Jewish people in a room blockaded by a lot of angry people yelling at them from outside, accusing them of being racists and blocking the exits so they can’t leave, it creates an unsafe environment for Jews, as our cultural history has shown over time,” said Mr. Shanker.

(added) Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum also wrote in Haaretz about what she witnessed:

On Friday January 22nd, after a peaceful Shabbat service, the JOH reception was due to begin, when about 200 protestors appeared, threatening and chanting and acting aggressively and calling for the eradication of Israel…

I’m a veteran of a number of very passionate and fierce protest actions. However, the mob-like feeling of the crowd was frightening and profoundly disturbing.

The hotel security locked the main door at a certain point to try and prevent more protesters from getting into the room, at which point protesters started pushing at a partition wall, to get in through the side, chanting “Shut it down! Shut it down!” I actually stood against the wall trying to prevent it being broken down….

For the Israelis, this situation triggered their memory of the stabber who attacked people in the Jerusalem Gay Pride march this past year. With the shouting getting louder, the partition wall being pushed, and the protesters aggressively approaching and taking the stage, it felt like things were spiraling out of control, and I escorted the Israelis out of the room through a side door. 

Capehart writes, This show of anti-Semitism at an LGBT conference should bring change:

Reporting on the demonstrations paints a chaotic scene of provocation, invective and reaction, as do the videos. One video in particular was especially disturbing because of what was being chanted:

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Those words are alarming because Palestine can’t get “from the river to the sea” without wiping the Jewish state off the map.

What happened in Chicago was so disturbing that an extraordinary group of 41 national and grass-roots LGBT leaders have signed a letter to Task Force executive director Rea Carey expressing their deep concern. The idea for the two-page missive came from Roberta Kaplan, the attorney who successfully argued the marriage-equality case before the Supreme Court, and Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, leader of the nation’s largest LGBT synagogue, who was at the conference and witnessed the demonstrations. They were joined by a host of Jewish and non-Jewish LGBT signatories, including Dana Beyer, Barney Frank, Vincent Jones, Andrea Shorter, Christine Quinn, the Rev. Neil G. Cazares-Thomas, Edie Windsor and Evan Wolfson.

The Open Letter to which Capehart was referrring is Letter to the LGBTQ Task Force:

…. More than one hundred protesters succeeded in physically intimidating and ultimately shutting down a reception organized by AWB featuring Israeli speakers from JOH. It has been reported — and videos taken contemporaneously confirm — that the protesters chanted slogans like “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea,” which necessarily suggests that the State of Israel should no longer exist. Another protester shouted, “We are going to challenge these Zionist racist motherfuckers.” There were also reports of altercations between the protesters and the reception guests. Witnesses saw a man get into a scuffle with the protesters and have his yarmulke knocked off his head. In a separate incident, there is a report of an individual who was called “kike.” ….

The targeted organizations’ reception was disrupted and shut down by protesters (including people not attending the conference) with such hostility and aggression that speakers and attendees at the event were justifiably terrified and felt physically threatened. We are united in our belief that what transpired at CC16 was dangerous, deeply disturbing, and given the use of epithets like “kike,” clearly anti-Semitic….

Given the concentrated and organized hostility that is so often displayed against Jewish and Israeli LGBTQ groups, and the stark rise in global anti-Semitism, it is even more important that we as a community promote civil and respectful debate. It is intellectually, politically and morally dishonest to claim that in the name of freedom, liberation, or some other progressive ideal, there is a right to target and exclude Jewish/Israeli groups, to foment physical intimidation and harassment, and to encourage anti-Semitism….

The National LGBTQ Task Force, which organized the conference, issued a statement National LGBTQ Task Force Condemns Anti-Semitism, which reads in part:

The following statement is being released by Rea Carey, National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director, at the close of this year’s Creating Change Conference in Chicago, Illinois.

“I want to make this crystal clear: the National LGBTQ Task Force wholeheartedly condemns anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic statements made at any Task Force event including our Creating Change Conference. It is unacceptable. Hate speech of any kind is unacceptable whether it’s directed at Jewish or Muslim people. Let me also be clear regarding a reception planned and hosted by the group A Wider Bridge with guests from Jerusalem Open House that happened after the annual Shabbat service and a protest of that reception. We are deeply concerned about how the events of the evening unfolded — and have already initiated a review of our conference practices….

Michael Lucas at OUT magazine wrote, The Creating Change Protest Was Pure Anti-Semitism:

It could have been a scene from the early days of Nazi Germany: a raucous mob surrounding a gathering of Jews, chanting vicious slogans, screaming epithets, all the while their faces distorted by a hatred that is as irrational as it is stunning.

But this was not 1930s Berlin; it was the Hilton Chicago hotel just last week. Perhaps the so-called “progressive” liberal Jews and Israelis at the LGBT rights conference there thought that their prior public criticism of Israel would protect themselves from attack—a kind of verbal “Iron Dome” similar to Israel’s ingenious missile defense system.

They were sadly mistaken. The 200 thugs who showed up Friday at a Jewish reception were not interested in dialogue. They comprised an enraged gang filled with Jew-hatred, bent on intimidating and silencing LGBT Jews who have any connection to the state of Israel. And the sponsor of the “Creating Change Conference,” the National LGBTQ Task Force, knew full well the potential for violence, and did absolutely nothing to safeguard the lives of more than 100 participants at the reception….

As wild-eyed as they were ignorant, those in the horde cheered in support of one leader of the attack who yelled “We’re going to challenge these Zionist racist motherfuckers!”

They blocked those who wanted to attend the reception from entering, and held prisoner those already inside the conference room. Several entered the room and commandeered the stage.

Despite that, A Wider Bridge’s director of programs, Tyler Gregory, courageously tried to speak about the links between Israel’s LGBT community and those around the world. As can be seen near the end of this video, however, he was shouted down by the hysterical screaming of an anti-Israel hater….

It must be pointed out here that while criticism of Israeli government policies can be legitimate, the extreme left has crossed the line into anti-Semitism, a term from the 1800s that simply means hatred of Jews. The imbeciles yelling in the hallway of that Chicago hotel did not care that the leftist Jerusalem Open House works to protect Palestinian gays, because they don’t really care about the Palestinians. Their entire obsession is with the only Jewish country in the world, Israel, and their desire to see the Jewish state and its inhabitants destroyed.

Mark Segal, who was in attendance, recounted the experience, Calling out insensitive, anti-Semitic protest at Creating Change 2016:

I was at Creating Change to speak about my just-published memoir, which speaks of my numerous arrests and nickel rides fighting for social justice. In many of the cities on my book tour, a young LGBT person asks, “What can we do today to create activism?” So I appreciate many in that crowd at the protest who were there wanting to do something. Unfortunately, they weren’t given the facts. They were misled into what became an ugly anti-Semitic rally….

Many of us would gladly protest Israeli treatment of Palestinians — I myself support a Palestinian state, the so-called “two-state solution” — but that is different than supporting the Palestinian government that wants you put to death if you’re LGBT and live on the Gaza Strip. But trapping Jews in a room yelling what is as close to a death slogan as there is … Does that conjure something? Look up “Kristallnacht.” Insensitive at the very least.

It’s great to see this generation wanting to protest injustice, but they need to understand the issues and the lessons of our early fight for equality. Fight first for our community’s rights, since if we do not, nobody else will. LGBT Palestinians can’t speak out in their homeland, and your protests only embolden those who keep them from speaking out.

The Task Force acknowledged its mishandling of the situation and said it will work to prevent future incidents. While they may have been unprepared, protest organizers are the ones who need to apologize — not just to those in that room who were forced to leave through a back door for safety, but to the entire LGBT community for their insensitivity and for supporting those who support our oppression.

The term these individuals use is “pinkwashing.” From this time on, pinkwashing equals self-hating anti-Semites.

None of this is happenstance.

Physical intimidation is the key to recent BDS activity, with speakers being shouted down and disrupted. The twisted doctrine of “Intersectionality” of which anti-pinkwashing is one version, makes Israel — and Israel alone — the common link among unrelated wrongs and problems in the world. Intersectionality has become the intellectual foundation of the movement.

That the LBGT community is waking up to what BDS really is, is not surprising. It’s sad that is took an incident like this to make it happen.

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Comments

Had to go look this up…

Pinkwashing (LGBT) – the promotion of the gay-friendliness of a corporate or political entity in an attempt to downplay or soften aspects of it considered negative.

I’m not Jewish. I’m not gay. I’m not Bi-sexual. I haven’t been a lesbian since college. I’m not queer, but I can fuss in front of the mirror for hours with the queerest of them.

So, logically, this shouldn’t really interest me at all.

But I find it utterly fascinating in its frightening absurdity.

I must ask:

1) Do staunch vegetarian members of the LGBT community harass and demonize meat-eating members of the LGBT community? I don’t think so. (And I don’t want to give them food for thought to start a campaign of harassment.)

2) Do freedom-loving members of the LGBT community harass and demonize Chinese members of the LGBT community for the Chinese government’s actions against Tibet and Tibetans? I don’t think so. Remember “Free Tibet”? You can go ahead and call me a wistful Pete Seeger wannabe, but “Where have all the Free Tibet bumper stickers gone?” Have they all become “Free Palestine” stickers? If so, why?

3) Do acrophobic members of the LGBT community, especially the subset who have a further fear of being forcefully pushed from a great height, like the top of a building, to their death … do they harass and demonize Muslim members of the LGBT community (the Muslim LGBT subset who have not yet been subjected to bungee-less Sharia bungee jumping, and are thus still among us) for the Muslim “pushers” actions? I don’t think so.

4) Do cat-loving members of the LGBT community harass and demonize dog-loving members of the LGBT community, and vice versa? I don’t think so.

5) Do nerd members of the LGBT community harass and demonize the jock members of the LGBT community and vice versa? I don’t think so.

6) Do Alabama football fan members of the LGBT community harass and demonize Auburn football fan members of the LGBT community and vice versa? I don’t think so.

7) Do medical malpractice lawyers in the LGBT community harass and demonize medical doctors within the LGBT community and vice versa? I don’t think so.

I could go on and on … and keep coming up with the same I-don’t-think-so answer.

I’m baffled.

I just can’t put my finger on what the distinguishing factor is when members of the LGBT community harass and demonize a group within the LGBT community so uncharacteristically.

As Bruce Jenner is my witness, I know being “transformed” is all the rage right now, but how is it possible that a large and hateful part of the LGBT community has transformed the conclusion of extensive inductive reasoning that groups within the LGBT community who disagree with other groups within the LGBT community nonetheless are guided by a larger, loving sense of LGBT solidarity which trumps any and all differences of opinion on myriad non-LGBT related matters?

I’m baffled. What is this crazy outlier of experience?

Sincerely,

Logically Lost in Los Angeles

P.S. –bonus question. If there is an LGBT “Coexist” sign/bumper sticker in rainbow colors, what symbol can be used to replace the Star of David?

    I’ve explained this before. Jew hatred is demonic. If you don’t believe in God and his enemies the demons, then you’re not going to understand Jew hatred.

      E_benAbuya in reply to gibbie. | January 31, 2016 at 12:45 pm

      There is an explanation of Jew hatred which doesn’t require a belief in demons. It arises from the remarkable congruence between antisemitism and every other form of addiction pathology. Briefly
      Addiction has three actors.
      The Pusher (The Jews Ate Your Homework). The Pusher deploys this to ensnare and manipulate the Addict for his own personal gain. There is no shortage of these among the theocratic (and nominally Socialist) Kleptocrats and tyrants of the Middle East. Or, throughout the history of antisemitism.
      [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/06/us-iran-nuclear-economy-insight-idUSKCN0PG1XV20150706]
      [http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/dubowitz-mark-the-iran-deal-will-unchain-top-ayatollahs-terror-slush-fund/]
      [http://www.globes.co.il/en/article-the-phenomenal-wealth-of-hamas-leaders-1000957953]
      [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/arafats-billions/]
      [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas#Corruption_allegations]
      [http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/blog/2015/8/27/abbas-to-build-presidential-palace-as-plo-crisis-continues] (inter alia)

      The Enabler/Co-Dependent (The Jews Ate Their Homework) provides emotional and material support to the Addict (without which the addict would rapidly enter end-stage and self-destruction.) They do so because that feeds their self-image as Don Quixotes fighting the good fight against the “demons and wizards and servants of sin.” The way this develops is explored at length in Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer” (summary here [http://psyclassics.com/book/hoffer-the-true-believer]. Infantalizing the addict, in this way, also helps the Enabler/Co-Dependent deal with the well founded fear that the Addict may turn on them at any moment. They hope that they will be able point to their “good deeds” to deflect the addicts violent behavior; but experience demonstrates that this is a vain hope.

      The Addict imbibes this drug to provide a soothing explanation for his failures/disappointments; that is “EXTRINSIC to his own choices and actions” (The Jews Ate My Homework). The unfortunate consequence of this is that it induces the Addict to violently act-out against those whom, he believes, ate his homework; and to make other bad (dysfunctional) choices which only deepen, aggravate and prolong the addiction. By acting-out against the straw-man; the actual causes of the addicts disappointments and failures remain unaddressed. Unaddressed they fester and grow worse.
      One feature the Addict and the Pusher share is that “they cannot be satisfied.” Even too much is never enough. This self-reinforcing cycle inevitably makes the life of the addict “unliveable”. One need only look to the Arab/Muslim world, and the flood of refugees swimming across the Mediterranean, and fleeing through Europe to see just how unliveable their lives have already become.

      Both the Addict and the Enabler/Co-Dependent live inside a universe of denial; and rely on the Defense Mechanisms described here: [http://www.peggyferguson.com/userfiles/10846/file/NewPDFSw_CartButtons/AddictionWorksheets/Defense%20Mechanism%20In%20Alcoholism.pdf] to sustain this bubble. One need only glance through the mountains of “Palestinianist” twaddle, that floods the internet, for example after example after example after example. Projection, Rationalization, Avoidance, Deflection, Manipulation, Hostility, Lying. and Blaming are the hallmarks of “Palestinianist” discourse.

        gibbie in reply to E_benAbuya. | January 31, 2016 at 9:48 pm

        I’m not sure this quite explains the Holocaust.

          E_benAbuya in reply to gibbie. | January 31, 2016 at 11:24 pm

          The Pushers:
          Die Juden sind unser Ungluck was the basic meme of the Third Reich. If you review examples of their iconography, it all reduces to “The Jews are sub-human, vermin, or terrifying animals who are eating, not only your homework, but the entire world’s” [http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/ds9-44.jpg]
          [http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/ds37-47.jpg]
          [http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/DS-1936-41.jpg]
          [http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/ds34-40.jpg]
          [http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/dsrm34.jpg] This one employs the blood libel
          [http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/images/sturmer/ds33-25.jpg]
          [http://jcpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/7786951866.jpg] This portrays the Jews as an octopus. It is recycled in this Carlos Latuff cartoon [https://commentisfreewatch.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/latuff.jpg]

          The Enabler/Co-Dependents
          [http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm]
          [http://www.hirhome.com/israel/nazis_palestinians.htm]
          [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact]

          The Addicts
          Primarily the German people, who voted the Nazis into power an followed them to destruction. There was also significant participation by individuals and groups around the globe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II]
          The context of the rise of Nazism was the Great Depression. Millions without jobs or prospects for the future. Particularly in Germany where the global melt-down was exacerbated by the chafing and humiliating burdens of the Versailles Treaty that ended WW I. Under the hypnotic spell of “The Jews Ate Your Homework” they did all the horrible day-to-day business of the Shoah.

This is good the more the radical left tears at itself the better. Give one a hammer and another the sickle.

Go at guys.

Soviet Russia had its “useful fools.” It seems the Islamists and anti-Semites have theirs.

Michael Lucas gets it. These people don’t actually care about Palestinians. All they care about us there Jewish race hatred.

Mailman

Lucien Cordier | January 30, 2016 at 6:59 am

Open fire. Insurance will pay to repair the walls, repaint, and replace the carpeting.

The Jewish groups need to bring their own security; armed security. When some scumbag assaults the stage, don’t just escort them out, break bones, smash in their faces. Protect yourselves.