You need no better example of how twisted parts of academia have become than to look at an anti-Israeli conference being organized at The City University of New York devoted to the issue of “homonationalism and pinkwashing.”
I have posted before about the “pinkwashing” charge leveled by anti-Israel gay activists.
Israel, the only country in the Middle East with a humane record on treatment of gays, is singled out for scorn by anti-Israel gay activists who fear that giving Israel credit on gay rights may take away from the war on Israel launched by groups and countries openly hostile to gays.
The pinkwashing charge rightly is described as part of an attempt to exterminate any semblance of Israeli legitimacy:
Anything that could blunt the demonization of the Jewish state is by definition as evil as the Jewish state itself is.
The City University of New York is a hotbed of the anti-Israeli pinkwashing movement, as detailed in this article at The Times of Israel:
In academic conference planned for next year in New York will use Israel’s largely positive record on gay rights to denounce its treatment of Palestinians.City University of New York last week announced Homonationalism and Pinkwashing, a gathering that will provide “an opportunity to examine Queer Resistance and Complicity globally” — but with a special emphasis on Israel. Hosted by CUNY’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, the conference will take Israel to task for “pinkwashing,” a term that accuses the country of promoting its progressive treatment of sexual minorities as a way of diverting attention from its conflict with the Palestinians. “Faced with intensifying criticism and the threat of economic boycott,” the conference website states, “the Israeli government expanded their marketing plan by harnessing Homonationalism to reposition its global image.”
From the conference website:
The co-opting of some LGBT people by anti-immigrant and in particular anti-Muslim political forces is widespread and growing. Rutgers Professor Jasbir Puar has coined the term “Homonationalism” to define collusion between LGBT people and identification with the nation state, re-enforcement of racial and national boundary, and systems of supremacy ideology no longer interrupted by homophobia. Homonationalism has spread far from its roots in European xenophobia and US militarism to become an increasingly potent tool in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mere political argument cannot fully diagnose the condition from which the organizers of this conference suffer. Call a doctor.
Update 3-30-2012: Keith Burgess-Jackson has a diagnosis for it, Academentia.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY