Pinkwashers occupy the pinkwatchers

by on June 19, 2012 3
76sharesFacebook
13tweetsTwitter
0stumbledStumbleUpon
0sharesReddit
0recommendGoogle
Jayson Littman
Jayson Littman

Writes a friend:

Here’s a little pinkwashing tidbit. I met with Haneen Maikey, director of Palestinian queer, anti-Occupation group al Qaws yesterday. They launched a new version of their “pinkwatchingisrael.com” website that afternoon.

I accidentally typed in pinkwatching.com – and it immediately redirected me to “outforisrael.org.” A little Googling found out it’s a project of Jayson Littman as part of PresenTense in New York, a Jewish ‘social entrepreneurship’ fellowship dedicated to the “centrality of state of Israel to the Jewish people.” One of the fellowship’s main goals is to “support grassroots or high-level efforts to connect youth to Israel and provide alternative strategies to overcome the BDS offensives carried out on campuses and across social networks.”

Littman’s bio on the website is below, along with some other relevant links to his writings. Littman is most well-known for organizing gay Jewish parties throughout the city through his party planning group “He’bro.” He’s written a bunch against boycott, and the Out! for Israel initiative is obviously in line with a bunch of other “hip,” often gay, pro-Israel initiatives; but buying pinkwatching.com just seems weird.

Littman’s website launches on June 20 with the other PresenTense fellows.

Jayson Littman, Out! for Israel bio at PresenTense:

Jayson Littman is the founder of He’bro (www.myhebro.com), a nightlife and entertainment group that produces and promotes events for the cultural gay Jew living in New York City. Through his involvement in both the gay and Jewish communities, Jayson’s mission is to bridge the identity of gay Jewish life in New York City. Jayson has led and organized LGBT Taglit-Birthright trips and is a founding steering committee member of Out@JNF, the LGBT networking group at the Jewish National Fund. A public speaker and writer on gay Jewish topics, Jayson currently writes for the Huffington Post and Heeb on topics pertaining to the gay Jewish community.

Jayson was born and raised in the Washington Heights section of New York City and currently resides on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Jayson’s venture: Out! for Israel is a pro-Israel voice in the LGBTQ community. We speak out to support Israel because it is the only nation in the Middle East that provides legal protection to LGBTQ people and other minorities. We respond to misinformation campaigns by educating the LGBTQ community about Israel’s diverse, pluralistic and free society. We are an apolitical and independent organization that believes that Israel, like any other nation in the world, has a legitimate right to exist and defend its citizens.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Activism, American Jewish Community, BDS, Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine

{ 3 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. DICKERSON3870 says:
    June 19, 2012 at 5:52 pm

    RE: “We speak out to support Israel because it is the only nation in the Middle East that provides legal protection to LGBTQ people and other minorities.” ~ Jayson Littman

    BUT SEE: Israel’s Treatment of Gay Palestinian Asylum Seekers ~ by Caroline Esser, The Washington Note, 6/06/11

    (excerpts). . . The newest way to sell Israel to Americans: LGBT rights. Search gay rights on the Anti-Defamation League’s website and what do you find? A ready-to-print and available for order poster that reads, “Which of the Middle East nations protects the legal rights, safety & freedom of the LGBT communities? Only Israel.” . . .
    . . . In their 2008 study, “Nowhere to Run: Gay Palestinian Asylum-Seekers in Israel,” Michael Kagan and Anat Ben-Dor describe in detail Israel’s unsympathetic and unbending policy towards gay Palestinians. . .
    . . .In pursuit of protection and the ability to openly express their sexuality, there have been at least ten cases in which gay Palestinians have sought refuge in Israel. However, despite their desperation, Israel refuses to even review gay Palestinian applications for asylum (those who have successfully received asylum have had to submit their cases directly to the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva). Moreover, gay Palestinians who have illegally entered Israel have been arrested and promptly deported–returned to the very environments in which their lives were at risk and in which they will now face further danger as they are questioned not only for their sexuality but for their choice to spend time in Israel. . .

    ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to thewashingtonnote.com

    • DICKERSON3870 says:
      June 19, 2012 at 5:57 pm

      RE: “We speak out to support Israel because it is the only nation in the Middle East that provides legal protection to LGBTQ people and other minorities.” ~ Jayson Littman

      SEE: ‘Pro-Palestinian activists have sexual identity problems’, by Noam Sheizaf, +972 Magazine, 6/12/12

      Israel’s deputy ambassador to Ireland, Nurit Tinari Modai, recently sent a letter to the Foreign Ministry, with some unusual suggestions for how Israel should fight its own citizens who dare show solidarity with Palestinians. The letter was revealed by Channel 10 news this evening.
      We can find names of [those] Israelis… we should hit their soft spot, publish their pictures, maybe it will embarrass their friends and relatives at home, and hopefully the local [Palestinian] activists will think that they work for the Mossad…
      The acts of these activists are, I think, not ideologically motivated, but rather have to do with psychological reasons (disappointment with their parents or problems with their sexual identity) or due to their need to receive a residence permit (refugee visa) in one of the European countries. . .

      The Foreign Ministry told Channel 10 that the letter doesn’t reflect the work of the office, which “doesn’t carry out witch-hunts.”

      SOURCE – link to 972mag.com

      • DICKERSON3870 says:
        June 19, 2012 at 6:08 pm

        P.S. ALSO SEE – “MK Michaeli: Gays need therapy, commit suicide at age 40″, by Ami Kaufman, +972 Magazine, 6/14/12

        MK Anastasia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu) is at it again. Remember the last one, when she poured water on an Arab MK from Labor, Ghaleb Majadele? You can watch that video here.
        Today she was in a panel discussion in the Knesset, and somehow the topic of homosexuals came up. Michaeli had something to say, as Ynet reports:
        Unfortunately I see on Channel 10 programs that show how nice it is to be gay. And they interview his mother, on how miserable she is, suffering, she divorced her husband and her child is gay… I think that most gays are guys that suffered very difficult experiences of sexual harassment at a very young age and it just gets worse.
        Where does Channel 10 get the right to broadcast programs like this? Content that my kids watch, by chance. How fun it is to put on make up and wear skirts. So, there is a need to cooperate with those homosexuals, because they are miserable, those homosexuals. In the end they commit suicide when they reach the age of 40 and it’s those same guys that want to be women. I hope our awareness will rise too… this is a campaign that needs to be done with professionals, also with psychologists.

        I wonder what the professional pinkwashers Ambassador Michael Oren and IDF Spokesperson have to say about this one?

        SOURCE -http://972mag.com/mk-anastasia-michaeli-gays-need-therapy-they-all-die-at-age-40/48294/