I last blogged about the controversy surrounding Pride Toronto’s decision to ban the group “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid” from marching in this year’s pride parade. Since then, the controversy has done anything but slow down. After the decision, QuAIA accused the city of censoring their freedom of speech, and organized resistance in an attempt to overturn the decision. Their efforts garnered widespread support, and drew condemnation from within the LGBT community against Pride.  On June 23rd, under pressure from the LGBT community, Pride Toronto decided to remove the ban against QuAIA. The group celebrated the decision as a victory for free speech, and promised to be the “loudest and largest part of Pride this year”.
Toronto's 30th Pride Parade
In my last blog I confided my joy in QuAIA’s being banned from the parade. I believed that QuAIA was spreading hate and ignorance about Israel, and I worried about the bystanders who would be unfairly swayed.  My statements were criticized: my fear, which led me to support censorship, was accused of being unfounded because the media and public are not as “susceptible and defenseless” as I believed they were. Instead, my critics said, I should have trusted that the media and my fellow citizens would have the ability to think critically. Sure enough, my worries were unfounded. What followed from QuAIA’s ban, and then removal of that ban, was an attack from the media against QuAIA, rather than support for them.  Mainstream media (Toronto’s most popular newspapers, the Toronto Star and the National Post) did not sympathize with QuAIA, but rather attempted to expose their hypocrisy.  Journalists questioned the morality of QuAIA singling out Israel in their campaign for human rights. They pointed out the horrible conditions homosexuals endure in all Middle Eastern countries, as well as the supposed apartheid in Lebanon. The conclusion they drew was that because QuAIA singles out Israel, “an oasis for homosexuality”, they clearly have some anti-Jewish state issues and are not interested in regular, healthy criticism of Israel’s government and politics. This perceived negative attitude had everyone worried. Justine Apple, who is the executive director of Kulanu Toronto–a Jewish LGBT social and educational group–said that QuAIA’s participation in the parade will create a “toxic and fearful environment”.
Within the Jewish community, the attitude towards QuAIA is negative: many are up in arms and on the defensive. Their strategy has been to flatter Israel by promoting its democracy and support for homosexuality.  They portray QuAIA as an antisemitic group out to demonize Israel.
With this thick air of controversy surrounding the parade, I decided to go and check it out for myself. Notwithstanding QuAIA, I was very excited for the parade: this is after all a celebration of Toronto’s LGBT community!  When I arrived at the parade, I wanted to talk to members of both QuAIA and Kulanu. Upon finding Kulanu, I was immediately taken aback.
A rally for Israel or Toronto's Pride Parade?
Their group looked more like a rally in support of Israel than a Jewish LGBT group. Speaking with Len Rudner of Kulanu, he expressed to me that despite what it looked like, Kulanu was marching in support and in celebration of Toronto’s Jewish LGBT community. When questioned about the staggering amount of Israel flags and signs promoting Israel’s support for it’s LGBT community, he said that the group is also speaking up for Israel’s LGBT community. They are walking with a positive voice of inclusiveness. However, I think that Kulanu’s mission was hijacked by Jews acting in defense of Israel reacting to QuAIA’s participation in the parade. The presence of the controversial Jewish Defense League, who marched with the group, gave me this hunch.
Elle Flanders of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, points to this decision by Kulanu (allowing the JDL to march with them) as an action of divisiveness. She claims that Kulanu is not provoking conversation but defending Israel at all costs. She believes they are simply crying wolf on antisemitism instead of creating debate and conversation on the issues. To Flanders, it is so important for QuAIA to march in the parade because to her, to be queer is to be a human rights activist. She argues that the
QuAIA
struggle against oppression is a political struggle that the Pride Parade has been dealing with ever since it began, 30 years ago. Just because the LGBT community in Toronto has been afforded rights, doesn’t mean they are going to stop fighting for basic human rights for people, everywhere in the world, wherever that may be. Yael, a Jewish Israeli now living in Toronto, who marched with QuAIA, insists that there is no democracy in occupation and therefore no democracy for the Palestinians. This issue is therefore correlated to gay issues because as the LGBT community had to fight for their democratic rights in the past, now privileged with these rights, they must fight for those without them. Just as the Jews fought in the civil rights movements in America, one formerly oppressed group has a sort of obligation to fight for all those oppressed.
Is QuAIA a hate group? Are they discriminatory, as they have been again and again accused? Flanders argues vehemently against this statement. QuAIA is standing in solidarity with Palestinians, fighting for their rights as humans. She claims the group does not hate Jews (many members are Jews and Israelis). Yet, for me there is still something incredibly uncomfortable in their name; when I asked Flanders whythey chose the negative name, she responded that sometimes you can’t just be in solidarity with something, you have to take a stand, make a statement, stir controversy. Sex sells, right?!
QuAIA
To me the name doesn’t stand for a criticism of Israel’s government and politics; it criticizes Israel right down to its core- right to its legitimacy. An Apartheid state suggests illegitimacy and therefore to be anti-Israeli apartheid suggests an attack against the state itself; not Israeli policies. While I’m the first to say that criticism against Israel’s government is not only warranted but essential for its own survival and upkeep of its democratic values, I think that QuAIA takes it one step too far by fumbling over the line of criticism into the realm of state permissibility. An apartheid state needs to be dismantled but Israel needs to end its occupation of the West Bank.
As the march began, the crowd was impressed by QuAIA, with its cute and catchy slogans like, “hey hey! ho ho! Israeli apartheid’s got to go!” and how it walked beside the reactionary group “free speech”. (Free speech was a group created in May as a reaction against Pride’s original ban against QuAIA: the group does not necessarily politically agree or disagree with QuAIA but supports their right to free speech) While Kulanu got the occasional cheer, the Israeli music that was played did not connect to most of the non-Jewish, non-Israeli crowd. Their group looked more like a poster for Israel than an expression of pride for Toronto’s Jewish LGBT community.
Kulanu
At the end of the day, the controversy that had been following the parade for months now did not signify the end of the world. The crowd did not turn into bloodthirsty antisemitic Israel-hating people poisoned with QuAIA rhetoric. So by the time both groups had proudly marched by me, I just began to feel fed up. QuAIA does have some legitimate points, but they take it too far for me. Yet at the same time, so did Kulanu. The issue may have been pushed to the front pages of Toronto’s newspapers, but all that was said was a bunch of nothing. No intellectual conversation was forged, no debates began and no understandings were made, and the issue of the parade, gay pride, was pushed to the side.
I actually like this article. I think it’s intelligently written and considered although I still wonder why people are so upset that QuAIA or other groups don’t protest other things.Everyone picks their battles just because you don’t approve of the one they’ve chosen doesn’t make it invalid. In the end I’m not sure discussion of Israel, in any way, is appropriate for the Pride Parade at all. Not that anyone should be censored but I am finding both sides of this argument suspect.
I feel very much as the author. I did a lot of internet research, and Q&A with friends and family about these issues and kept falling back to free speech while not necessarily feeling aligned with QuAIA’s approach to its own name. For me personally, the issue boiled down to “pride ≠closet = censorship”. But I do think intellectual conversation was forged – over email and in person between many individuals who now want to know more and will hopefully continue with their own research.
I really appreciate your article, thanks for posting it. I do disagree with your conclusion in the last paragraph “No intellectual conversation was forged, no debates began and no understandings were made, and the issue of the parade, gay pride.. was pushed to the side”. In fact much has changed. Personally I have been disengaged from Pride and the Pride Parade for many years. The issues around QuIAI and free speech not only made me pay attention to the actions of Pride Toronto and the City, but also compelled me to delve into learning more about Israel, I have had discussions and debates on these issues with people with whom I would never have discussed politics. I know that my experience is not unique. This is indeed movement towards change, albeit glacially slow. And human rights for queers has so much to do with Pride.
Well done. I think the real positive that came out of having Quaia march was that it did get people thinking and talking. People on all sides were challenged to go beyond the rhetoric in explaining their positions, and I think that serves us well.
Interestingly enough, after all that protest about South African Apartheid and the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa, South Africa still exists. Her mistake is saying QuAIA went to far in its name While I think the writer makes some valid points, she, like many, seem so hung up on the word “Apartheid” that it just proves to me that QuAIA gave itself the right name. Yes, Ms. Flanders, sex does sell and the community and the media did speak about Israel throughout this time. The Queer community was engaged in politics like never before. Also, the “reactionary”(what you mean by that is not clear and a bad choice of words to describe what the group is) has a name, The Pride Coalition for Free Speech. Far being reactionary, ti worked with QuAIA to get a place in the parade. PCFS helped organize events were Palestinian Queers spoke about the reality of their lives and life under Israel’s policies. Dialogue and debate during a Pride Parade!!!? This must have been your first one. No way to dialogue and debate in a parade! We’re too busy having a good time! But believe me it did happen and will continue to happen.
I appreciated the article, and your fairness toward groups you disagree with.
I think you need to check your hypothesis about whether the Israel’s race-related problems are all in the occupied territories. Palestinians inside Israel are ghettoized, their land stolen, their houses demolished and their very presence criminalized. There are separate bus systems, education systems and budgets. There are dozens of laws that forbid Palestinians from owning or using state lands (95% of Israelis state land). No new Palestinian town or neighborhood has been built since 1948. And of course, there are massive government projects to Judaize every region with a Palestinian presence. In the West Bank, Judaization is merely easier to perform because there is a military occupation, but the same processes are active inside Israel proper.
I have to agree with Loki on this point — while South Africa certainly had to *change* its constitutional and governmental *structure* when apartheid was dismantled, the state itself didn’t cease to exist. In fact, for all the problems that the country still has, it is undeniably a stronger and more stable state than it was 20 years ago, when it certainly wouldn’t have been able to host the World Cup. So “apartheid” doesn’t mean that the state so labelled necessarily has to be eradicated; it just means there has to be change.
That said, I’m not personally comfortable using the term “Israeli apartheid” to describe the Israel/Palestine situation; I find that its use tends to get in the way of the real discussion that needs to take place. Instead of permitting a real human rights discussion about how to find the right balance between Israel’s right to self-defense and the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, most of the time calling it apartheid causes the discussion to spiral out of control into a slanging match over the propriety of the word itself, and then that discussion tends to splatter innocent third parties, like the Pride Committee or York University, who end up being forced to pick sides in a battle that really doesn’t have anything to do with them.
However, as a non-activist queer bystander who’s been watching this whole debate, I am concerned by how little media attention has been paid to the intellectual dishonesty of the CJC/JDL/Martin Gladstone side of the equation. They’ve continually failed to point out the fact that at least half of QuAIA’s members, including virtually all of its most vocal spokespeople, are Jewish.
They talked about a QuAIA marcher with a swastika on his T-shirt; left out was the fact that the swastika had a red X through it, connoting ANTI-Nazism. Most discussion of the swastika T-shirt *still* fails to acknowledge that; the one anti-QuAIA op ed piece I’ve ever seen which did acknowledge the red X explained why it was still offensive so poorly that I honestly came away thinking “it’s anti-Semitic to *oppose* Nazism? Really?”
They talked about QuAIA fomenting violence, ignoring the fact that the only remotely violent act that accompanied QuAIA’s presence in the parade last year was a bottle thrown *at* QuAIA *by* a JDL member, not vice versa. They continually bring up an absurdly illogical red herring that the (certainly laudable) fact that Israel is more gay-friendly than most of its neighbours somehow means that all gays must uncritically stand behind every single thing Israel does, as though it weren’t possible to say that a country could be right on issue X but still wrong on issue Y.
And they’ve virtually ignored the fact that some of the JDL contingent’s placards and signs in Sunday’s parade were at least as close — and quite possibly far closer — to hate speech as anything QuAIA has ever said or done.
So no, I’m not an unconditional supporter of QuAIA — but until a legal body with the authority to do so has formally ruled that the phrase “Israeli apartheid” constitutes hate speech, I do have to count myself an unconditional supporter of their right to be heard.
It is horrifying to me that, despite your obvious intelligence and openness, you seem to genuinely believe that using the term “Israeli apartheid” implies that one thinks Israel should not exist. No wonder there is so much intransigence on every side of this debate. Must one point out that the putative end of apartheid in South Africa, at least in legal terms, did NOT result in the end of South Africa’s existence?
The two main criticisms of QuAIA are flawed.
1. Opposing the policies/actions of Israel’s government is not to be anti-Semitic. Likewise, opposing the policies/actions of an Islamic state is not to be anti-Muslim. Many of QuAIA’s members are Jews. Many Jews are highly critical of Israel’s policies/actions. Are they anti-Jew? They hate themselves? No, of course they don’t.
2. Accusing the State of Israel of “apartheid” is not to call for the dismantling of that state. It is to call for an end to the policies/actions that uphold an apartheid regime. Apartheid is an unjust institutional web within a state. Ending that web does not result in “destruction” of the state.
Would it be better if they replaced the word apartheid with segregated?
Kulanu’s actions are just going to backfire. Within the LGBT community, this controversy is already starting to produce itself more and more the Jewish community attacking the LGBT community. I totally agree with the observations of the author regarding Kulanu in the Pride Parade. A really bad move.
I’d like to thank everyone for their comments and criticism- I really do appreciate them, and am glad how they’ve all been shared in a friendly and debate centered fashion. If anything, at least this has provided a sort of forum and debate on the subject!
Maureen Aslin: I’m really glad to hear that these issues were discussed outside of the parade but spurred by the controversy it created. I suppose even this blog and the comments it has received is also another proof of your conclusion. I think that what I was referring to in my last paragraph was that within the parade itself, through the main characters (Kulanu and QuAIA) there was no discussion- only defensiveness. (criticism of Israel and defense of Israel) However, I agree that conversations outside this would be just as important. I wrote early in the article that I was worried that people would “just believe what they heardâ€- but I think that people have rather thought critically about the subject, and done their own research. (Just as Ryan, (the comment above yours) said)
Loki: You are so right: I am defiantly hung up on the word Apartheid. I personally don’t believe that there is an apartheid in Israel, because I don’t include the West Bank as Israel proper. If tomorrow Israel decided to annex the West Bank, then yes, Israel would become an apartheid. A lot of people would tell me that this doesn’t matter, but to me it does. The west bank is not Israel, although occupied by it. While the actions of the settlers does suggest otherwise, (mostly because it is illegal to settle a land that is occupied, rather than annexed) however, I think that most of these settlements can be dismantled. (Yes, some of the larger ones are too large to dismantle, but there are other solutions to this problem including choice of citizenship of Palestine, or land swap) While I too am strongly opposed to the military occupation in the West Bank, and continually hope for peace and a solution and while I can believe there are apartheid like conditions in the area, including racism, radicalism (on the part of the Jewish settlers) and Jewish supremacy, I still do not see this an apartheid- mostly because included in this definition is that it is institutionalized, and because there needs to be a desire to maintain this regime. I don’t think that most Israelis want to maintain it- because most want peace and peace through a 2 state solution. (not all of course) Further, what would it mean to dismantle Israel, if we were to say it was an apartheid. It would, to me, mean to dismantle itself as a Jewish state. By saying Israel is an apartheid, you are considering the West Bank as part of Israel, and therefore to dismantle it you are giving equal rights and citizenship to Palestinans in the West Bank. If this happens, Israel would have to grant them full rights, including voting, and would de-facto create something like a state of all it’s peoples- or a binational state. This would deteriorate the Jewish character of the state. This is what I mean when I say I think there needs to be an end to the occupation in the West Bank, and a self-determination of the Palestinian people in a Palestinian state.
Thanks for informing me on the Pride Coalition for Free Speech, what I learned about them was through conversation with some of the people who were marching with them at the parade. Just through conversation I learned that they were formed because of the orginal ban against QuAIA, so when I use “reactionary†I mean as a reaction to the events that occurred. Also when I say dialogue and debate “during a Parade†I meant rather organized events by the players who are marching (Kulanu and QuAIA, or other groups who feel they should be involved)
Itamar: Sorry, just to clarify when you say Palestinians within Israel proper, you are referring to those who have citizenship? (Israeli Arabs?) If this is so, I completely agree with you, there are definite problems relating to Israeli Arabs within Israel. I think it comes back to this idea of how democratic can a “Jewish state†be? By being a Jewish state, you deny national collective rights of Israeli Palestinians, even though Israel affords them individual rights. There is an element of exclusiveness that can be traced right down to core Zionist ideology. However- if you historically research Zionist ideology it was not formed to be racist or exclusive but out of defence from antisemitism and their own exclusivity. Does this give an excuse for the race related problems found in Israel today? No, however it provides insight to why things are the way they are today. This is a major problem in Israel, and it too is tied to the occupation, it stems from Jewish Israelis distrust of Arabs and an intrinsic connection to a Jewish state. Thanks for bringing up this problem too.
Craig: It’s not that I think that Israeli apartheid constitutes hate speech, I just think it is an unfair description of Israel, for reasons I unpacked above in my response to Loki. I like what you say about Israel not being eradicated, but rather changed. I suppose I’m just nervous about what kind of change this insists as I’m a strong believer in the nature of a Jewish state.
I think what you wrote about the media not paying attention the CJC/JDL/Martin Gladstone side is true. This is what surprised me about the media: the attack more on the QuAIA than anything else. I really enjoyed my talks with members of QuAIA, while I don’t argree with everything that was said, they are NOT antisemitic, and most people I talked to were Jews. I think that the idea of bringing up Israel as a gay oasis, is part of a bigger campaign to show the good sides of Israel. This is happening on campuses too, where students are skirting issues to instead show the great parts of Israel. Jews in support of Israel are finding themselves constantly up in arms about Israel and this is translating as unconditional support for Israel. What’s even more disturbing is groups on campuses (like Hasbara for example at York Universtiy) are feeding students scripts about what Israel does right. I’ve debated with a few people before and I began to notice something fishy was going on when each person gave me examples that were identical!! Critical thinking has instead been replaced with blind defense.
Thanks to everyone, I appreciate comments and criticism because they bring out a point of view that I may not have thought of, and force me to rethink my own positions. Because of the complexity of this situation I am constantly changing my opinion and accessing new information.