[van-announce] Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Vancouver statement on Vancouver Queer Film Festival Pinkwashing

[Charlotte Kates]

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Vancouver
<http://quaiavancouver.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/quaia-vancouver-statement-on-vqff-pinkwashing/>
has
issued an important statement on pinkwashing at the Vancouver Queer Film
Festival. Please forward widely! This statement comes following the
placement of a pinkwashing ad by Yad b'Yad within the VQFF's program guide,
the VQFF's refusal to adopt a BDS policy - all of this amid the massacres
in Gaza, Palestine.

Full statement (with important commentary and background) at link:
http://quaiavancouver.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/quaia-vancouver-statement-on-vqff-pinkwashing/
There
are two important statements to read as well - from Sins Invalid, the
groundbreaking disability justice-based performance project centering
disabled artists of color and queer / gender non-conforming disabled
artists, withdrawing from the Festival (
http://disability-justice.tumblr.com/post/94025105614/sins-invalid-pulls-film-out-of-vancouver-queer-film)
and from SFPIRG (
http://www.sfpirg.ca/news/public-letter-to-vqff-re-pinkwashing/), the Simon
Fraser University Public Interest Research Group.

QuAIA Vancouver Statement on VQFF Pinkwashing

[image: VQFF Pinkwashing]
<http://quaiavancouver.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/vqff-pinkwashing.jpg>

*Unceded Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver) August 7th, 2014.*

It is with great concern and disappointment that Queers Against Israeli
Apartheid (QuAIA) Vancouver responds to the half-page advertisement for Yad
b’Yad LGBTQ featured in the Vancouver Queer Film Festival’s 2014 Festival
Print Guide.

Yad b’Yad is a pinkwashing organization devoted to promoting ties between
the state of Israel and LGBTQ communities in Canada. Earlier this year, Yad
b’Yad screened a film funded by the Israeli Film Fund and hosted an
advocacy workshop on pinkwashing strategies at the Centre for Israel and
Jewish Affairs in Vancouver. The group also lauds Canada and Israel for
being amongst the top 10 gay-friendly militaries in the world and
celebrates Tel Aviv as a centre for gay tourism.

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) has offered a platform and chosen
to accept marketing funds from Yad b’Yad despite the growing international
movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against the state of
Israel.

The VQFF’s decision to feature Yad b’Yad occurs in the context of ongoing
Israeli apartheid and occupation of Palestine, which takes the form of mass
displacement, illegal Israeli settlements, racist laws, checkpoints, a
system of walls, barriers, and roads accessible solely to Israeli settlers,
and the illegal siege of Gaza, deemed the world’s largest open-air prison.

The most recent Israeli invasion of Gaza has involved mass arrests,
displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, and has claimed
more than 1,766 lives, including at least 400 children, and injured more
than 9,320 Palestinians to date and been widely denounced by people around
the world. According to UNICEF, over 30% of civilian casualties thus far
have been children. All of these numbers will likely continue to rise in
the days to come.

It is crucial to note that Gaza has no army, no navy, and no air force with
which to defend itself against one of the strongest militaries in the
world. While the Harper government has described the Israeli invasion of
Gaza as “self-defence” and mainstream media continue to characterize the
latest bombardment as a “two-sided conflict”, we recognize Israel’s
military dominance and the racist ideology underpinning these attacks as
genocidal.

QuAIA Vancouver came together as part of a growing international movement –
led by Palestinians – against Israeli apartheid and occupation. In
particular, QuAIA Vancouver has targeted the aggressive public relations
campaign launched by the state of Israel to market itself itself as being
an oasis of liberal tolerance in the Middle East and the only gay-friendly
country in an otherwise hostile region while also silencing any dissent by
equating any critiques of its war crimes as anti-Semitic, something many
prominent Jewish leaders (amongst others) have denounced. By appealing to
the global LGBTQ community to support the Israeli apartheid state at the
expense of Palestinians, Israel is actively engaged in the pinkwashing of
apartheid and occupation.

As queers, trans* folks, and allies, we are outraged by the appropriation
of queer and trans* struggles for liberation in order to obscure, excuse,
and justify Israeli state violence. In 2012, QuAIA Vancouver and community
allies launched a campaign urging the VQFF to be in solidarity with
Palestinian queer and trans* communities and come out against the Israeli
apartheid regime.

After outrage from local members of the queer and trans* community
demanding answers, the VQFF recently issued a statement regarding the Yad
b’Yad advertisement, framing the concerns as a lack of clarity about
advertising polices. The statement further refers to “the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict” as something that is a deeply “personal and
political issue for many”. This reframing and normalizing of systemic,
institutionalized oppression and the brutal and illegal occupation of the
Palestinian people and their land as a conflict between two sides and as a
personal issue is deeply problematic and needs to be named. The statement
also claims that the VQFF did not intend to take a position on the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, the actions and inactions of
VQFF over the last two years suggest otherwise.

Last year, the Festival held a panel to discuss the issue. QuAIA Vancouver
was not even notified of the event. The panel composition and framing of
the discussion served to further normalize this criminal occupation as a
conflict between equals and did not in any meaningful way address Israel’s
active and ongoing pinkwashing campaign or the VQFF’s participation in it.

The VQFF statement goes on to state that it is time for “open, honest, and
constructive conversations” because they do not shy away from this. Yet
QuAIA Vancouver and others engaged in this work continue to await a
response, two years later despite our repeated attempts at engagement,
discussion, outreach, and education. In the interim, as we write this, the
people of Gaza and Palestine at large continue to lose their lives to
Israel’s brutal and ongoing assault on their homes, hospitals, playgrounds,
schools and much more. While the rest of the world is speaking out, the
VQFF remains silent. We believe there has been ample time these past two
years for the Festival to engage in discussions, dialogue, and
conversation. The time has come for action without further delay.

As a result, we call on the Festival to issue an unequivocal apology for
accepting marketing funds from Yad b’Yad and for printing their
advertisement and as it is too late for a retraction, a return of their
advertising funds and a donation of funds in the equivalent amount
specifically to groups at the forefront of anti-pinkwashing activism and
education, led by and for Palestinian queer and trans* people such as
Al-Qaws or Palestinian Queers for BDS.

We call for no less than complete boycott, divestment, and sanctions
against Israel and for the VQFF and broader LGBTQ communities to join in
international solidarity with Gaza and the fight for Palestinian
liberation. Specially, we call for the Festival to meet the two-years plus
outstanding demand for a BDS resolution no later than November 29th, 2014,
the United Nations International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian
people. Members of the community and those who have supported the VQFF to
date have made it clear that they are committed to increasing pressure on
the Festival as needed to express their deep concern and outrage regarding
this ongoing delay in adopting a BDS resolution and the profound lack of
judgement demonstrated in accepting advertising funds from Yad b’Yad.

We write this with the hope that the Festival will do the right thing and
with a renewed commitment to standing in solidarity with the Palestinian
people and in particular at this time, with Gaza.
*SEE ALSO: Sins Invalid Statement pulling out of VQFF due to
pinkwashing:http://disability-justice.tumblr.com/post/94025105614/sins-invalid-pulls-film-out-of-vancouver-queer-film
<http://disability-justice.tumblr.com/post/94025105614/sins-invalid-pulls-film-out-of-vancouver-queer-film>*

*SINS INVALID and MICAH BAZANT artwork: *
[image: image]

* SEE ALSO: SFPIRG Public Letter on
Pinkwashing:http://www.sfpirg.ca/news/public-letter-to-vqff-re-pinkwashing/
<http://www.sfpirg.ca/news/public-letter-to-vqff-re-pinkwashing/>*

"*Image Description:* Painting of a dark-skinned disabled woman on left in
a jail cell clasping hands with olive-skinned disabled woman on right in a
warzone. Woman on the left uses a wheelchair and is wearing orange prison
clothes with bars in the background.  Woman on the right is wearing a hijab
and her left arm & left leg are newly amputated & bandaged. Image on text
reads: ”Disability Justice means resisting together from solitary cells to
open-air prisons.” Art by Micah Bazant & Sins Invalid."
-- 
Charlotte L. Kates     charlotte.kates at gmail.com