A pink light unto nations or a ‘pink wash’?

November 4, 2011 - 11:51 AM by

Gal Uchovsky (Photo: Dor Malka)

For an interesting take on the unlikely partnership between Israel’s gay and lesbian community and the Israel government’s Foreign Ministry, led by right-wing Israel Beteinu minister Avigdor Lieberman, check out Gal Uchovsky’s recent premiere column that’s going to appear regularly in The Jerusalem Post.

Uchovsky is one of the country’s best known culture personalities – as a filmmaker with his partner Eytan Fox of the films Walk on Water, Yossi and Jagger and The Bubble among others, a judge on Kochav Nolad, the Israeli equivalent of American Idol, and as a journalist and gay activist.

In his column, he ponders the irony of the ministry’s policy of using “the boistrous, proud Israeli LGBT community as a vehicle to show the world that Israel is an advanced liberal democracy” at the same time that Lieberman’s party is “responsible for proposing a bunch of ugly new bills all meant to restrict freedom of expression.”

Uchovsky cites a number of campaigns including:

- the Out in Israel month in Boston this month, which is hosting TV star Assi Azar who will be screening his TV film, “Mom, Dad, I Have Something to Tell You.”

- The campaign of Tourism Minister Stas Meseznikov (also Israel Beiteinu), who together with gay Tel Aviv municipality official Yaniv Weizman has succeeded in bringing almost 100,000 gay men and women from Europe to vacation in the country in 2011.

- An exhibition of gay art in London and Manchester, England.

The reason behind the campaigns, explains Uchovsky, is that the government has discovered in the LGBT community the most impressive example of Israel as “the only modern, open oasis in an ever-more extreme Muslim desert.”

“Suddenly, the conservative Right was not only okay with LGBT, it was promoting it,” he writes.
The dilemma raised within the LGBT community whether to cooperate with the campaigns has resulted in some members of the community refusing to participate in the activities – calling it a “Pink Wash,” a cover-up for Israel’s less attractive policies regarding the Palestinians.

Read more here.

Tags: • Category: A New Reality, coexistence, education, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Pop Culture, Social Justice 

Comments

2 Comments on A pink light unto nations or a ‘pink wash’?

  1. downtown dave on Fri, Nov 4th 2011 2:10 PM

    2. “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”

  2. Rebecca on Sun, Nov 6th 2011 8:22 AM

    3. This is one of the unlikely cases where even if Avigdor Lieberman says it, it’s still true – Israel is in fact the country in the Middle East most accepting of LGBT people. It doesn’t erase the fact of the occupation, but it’s still worth mentioning.

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