Gay-friendly Israel touted in Washington Post

January 25, 2012 - 11:21 AM by David

Israel’s growing image as one of the world’s premiere gay destinations just keeps gaining steam.

Only a couple weeks after Tel Aviv was named by the website Gay Cities as the Best Gay City of 2011, The Washington Post has published an AP feature touting the fact that Israel is one of the world’s most progressive countries for gay rights.
Among the points the story makes are that gays serve openly in the IDF and the Knesset, and the Supreme Court has granted gays a variety of family rights such as inheritance and survivors’ benefits.

The story relates to the government efforts to promote gay tourism to Israel, and finds a Tel Aviv University law professor, Aeyal Gross, to accuse authorities of “co-opting the gay community to deflect attention away from violations against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and African migrants who seek refuge in the Jewish state.”

“The more Israel brands itself as a liberal democracy, the less pressure will be on it internationally,” Gross said. “If you care about gay rights, then you should also care when the rights of others are abused.”

The story then goes on to admit that on the beaches and wild nightclubs of Tel Aviv, not many people are thinking about a ‘spin’ to the lifestyle that – according to The Tourism Ministry – attracted almost 100,000 gay men and women from Europe to vacation in the country in 2011.

Dennis Muller, a 22-year-old tourist from Berlin, gave AP an eyewitness account.

“You enter Tel Aviv and you are in the gay dream,” Muller said on a recent weeknight inside the packed Dreck nightclub. “It’s like entering a bubble of peace for homosexuals or LGBT people in the Middle East.”

So, why shouldn’t Israel be promoting itself as a prime destination for gay travelers, and what in the world does it have to do with the problems the country faces in so many other spheres? I say, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

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