Can We Lose with Zibbi and the Homos on Our Side?

Homos in camos scaring off dem Arabs

Hey - remember a while back, Zibbi Livni came up with that wonderful idea, to enlist the homosexual community to Israel's aid and promote gay tourism to Israel?

Well Zibbi is a woman of her word! Oh yes she is!

Look at the bottom (no bun intended) of this page: what does it say?

It says Pictures and texts courtesy of the Ministry of Tourism, that's what it says.

[oopsie - she's not in charge of that ministry is she? She's got the foreign office. But it seems there is cooperation with the Tourism Ministry here - G.R.].

Oh thank you Zibbi, for bringing as many faygelehs as possible into Tel Aviv. This is definitely going to scare off the Arabs!

- Hey Achmed, wanna go conquer Tel Aviv?

- You crazy Mahmoud? There's all these macho Jewish gay guys there! Deyll beat us up!! Let's go back to Saudi!


I recommend taking a few minutes to read this text too:

The development of a gay identity was difficult for many at a time when Israeli society was still in the midst of its Zionist revolution. Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, sought to create a "New Jew" as part of the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty. The New Jew would work the land or engage in blue collar jobs, rather than in the "bourgeois" professions taken up by Jews in the Diaspora (the early Zionists were resolute socialists).

The security problems facing the Jewish state also precluded for many years discussion of a variety of social issues and problems. Pleading more pressing issues, the public agenda did not include the place of Mizrachim (Jews who immigrated to Israel from the Arab countries) in a society dominated by European-born Jews, women's liberation, equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel, or gay rights. Moreover, the collective values preached by the early founders of the Jewish state likewise left little room for exploration of personal identity.

(...)

Yet, gay identity and politics still did not go public. The close-knit nature of Israeli society made coming out exceedingly difficult, as did Israeli society's emphasis on family and reproduction. So it fell on non-gay supporters of gay rights to move things forward.

(...)

Mainstream Success
The reasons for gay and lesbian political success during this period from 1988 through the mid-1990s were many. Chief among them was the fact that gay activists pursued a very mainstream strategy, seeking to convince the wider public that gay Israelis were good patriotic citizens who just happened to be attracted to the same sex.

This strategy, pursued until recently, reinforced the perception that gay rights was a non-partisan issue, unconnected to the major fissure in Israeli politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict and how to resolve it. Embracing gay rights enabled Israelis to pat themselves on the back for being open-minded, even as Israeli society wrestled less successfully with other social inequalities.

Another reason for success was that the only source of real opposition to gay rights in Israel stems from the country's religious parties. This may seem contradictory, but it is not. While religious parties have played a role in every Israeli government since the establishment of the state in 1948, in recent years, as their power has grown, so has the resentment of secular Israelis. Thus, the opposition of religious parties to gay rights has engendered the opposite reaction among non-religious Israelis.

The Revolution Begins
The mainstream path started to grate on some gay and lesbian Israelis in the late 1990s.

(...)

But the radical critique has not been all-encompassing. The Israeli LGBT movement has not embraced feminism (in fact, sexism and tensions between gay men and lesbians are both quite prevalent), and until recently, the place of gay Arabs in the community was neglected, reflecting the wider society's indifference to Israel's Arab minority (some 20 percent of Israel's population).

Hagai Elad's article, "Gay Israel: No Pride In Occupation" thus comes at a rather grim time for Israel, and possibly, at a turning point for queer politics. Against the backdrop of clashes between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the 2001 Tel Aviv's Pride Parade, typically a celebratory, hedonistic affair, got a dose of politics when a contingent called "Gays in Black" marched with a banner proclaiming, "There's No Pride In Occupation."

All this courtesy of our tax shekel.