Pinkwashing: Debate

The day before Tel Aviv's internationally renowned gay pride parade, Haaretz asked: Is gay pride more complex when it comes to Israel? Should we be questioning whether Israel is using gay rights to "pinkwash" its actions in the West Bank and Gaza, or are pinkwashing charges just an irrelevant ploy to change the subject back to the Palestinians?

Aeyal Gross, Haaretz's legal commentator, and James Kirchick, a Washington-based journalist, debated the question right here.

Kirchick defined pinkwashing as "anything Israel does that's positive with regard to LGBT rights [having] an ulterior, sinister motive." Gross, meanwhile, called pinkwashing an "appropriation of LGBT rights for propaganda to promote an image of [Israel] as democratic while diverting from other rights violations."

When Kirchick challenged Gross to provide an example of a leader who used LGBT rights to justify the occupation, Gross replied that "when after the flotilla, Netanyahu says 'go to Gaza, not to us,' the message is clear."

Kirchick and Gross continued to debate the merit of claims that gays in Israel have more rights than gays in the Arab world. "So what," Gross said. "Gays in the U.K. have many more rights than in Israel. So what?" ...

From a Twitter debate held by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Kirchick is arguably America's most right-wing gay journalist.

He once famously tried to end homophobia in Russia by revealing that he was wearing some rainbow suspenders [braces] during an interview on Russia Today.

PS Israeli security forces exploit Palestinians’ sexual orientation to blackmail them into becoming collaborators. The Israeli LGBT mainstream’s silence about this persecution exposes a moral lapse.

Why I Won't Be Participating In Tel Aviv's Pride Parade.