Amal Amireh – Israel Using Gays to Bomb Iran
By Guest Post • May 6th, 2009 at 13:21 • Category: Analysis, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Features, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War, Zionism
Israel is so worried about the International community's willingness to talk to Iran before bombing it that they are launching a new "bomb-before-you-talk" public "relations" campaign.Gay rights in Iran are at the center of this public "tarnation" campaign. Israel is planning to use Iran's treatment of its homosexuals to convince the world that Iran deserves to be bombed to smithereens. They are planning to recruit western gay rights activists to do their propaganda for them, according to this report in Ha'aretz.
This is bad news for homosexuals in Iran and for those who care about them.
Ask the women of Afghanistan. Not long ago, they were mobilized for another public relations campaign that wanted to sell the war on Afghanistan to every American household. This is when CNN, Fox, and Oprah discovered Afghani women and were so moved by their plight that they decided to bomb them to free them from their misery. And look at the result! The Afghani government that was produced by years of war has just decided that a husband has the legal right to have sex with his wife every four days. No ifs, buts or headaches are acceptable. In other words, the Afghani constitution legalizes marital rape now. Afghani women, those who survived the bombing, had taken to the streets to protest this new legislation and were pelted with stones for their immodesty. But, hey, stones are better than bombs. So there is progress after all.
You can also ask the gays of Iraq, who have been tortured and assassinated by one militia or another after years of mayhem that brought them a new "democracy." And while you are at it, talk to the women, those who are starved, raped, sold, and beheaded in the new Iraq.
The lesson from Afghanistan (and Iraq, and Gaza, and wherever the bombs are falling) is that bombing a country does not improve human rights in that country. Bombs do not make progress. In fact, the weakest groups will be the ones to suffer most: the poor, children, women, gays, minorities. They will pay the heaviest price of war and militarization. Even if war does not take place, using gays in Iran as pawn in the war rhetoric will increase their vulnerability to violence and prejudice.
Israel knows this very well. But it doesn't give a damn about Iranian gays. It's on the war path.
But for those of us who do give a damn, our work has just got harder. International LGBT groups must distance themselves from the Israeli agenda because it is the kiss of death for Iranian gays. And we all must find ways to continue to advocate for human rights and at the same time expose the cynical manipulation of these rights by politicians and generals.
It is the only way.
I am also the author of “Improvisations: Arab Woman Progressive Voice,” a blog about Arab women, Palestine, and cultural politics.
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Amal. Salam and nice to see you on the front pages of Palestine Think Tank. It is so ironic that Israel denies residency in Israel to wife or husband of an Israeli Arab who marries from the West Bank,yet, advocates of Gay rights in Israel were able to secure residency in Israel for Palestinian gays who are lovers to Israeli Jews. I think Israel will succeed in securing the support of the Gay movement in the US and the world to bomb the hell out of Iran.
Sadly, for what my comment is worth, I must agree with sami jamil jadallah, although for different reasons. The majority of "Western" GLBT people, in my own experience, are easily manipulated by the MSM hasbara offensive. Mostly that's because they only have time to read the "headlines", and have no time for any in-depth analysis. Or, less generously, it's because, apart from a very few true activists, they really don't give a flying fuck about anyone or anything except their own indulged lifestyles. They're only interested in tags, labels, so-called "poplular culture", incl. TV, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, et al, and their own next sexual conquest/adventure…
Sami,
I don't think it will work. These tricks are not new to the US public, and half-the country is opposed to gay marriage. If liberal Americans take the bait for this, then we are screwed.
It's possible they will, but gay culture doesn't have many representatives in Washington and most are Anti-War. Although people in gay communities often seem self-absorbed, they are not cruel and generally care about a better world.
Read articles from Jonanthin Chait who is a senior editor at the magazine, The New Republic.
He will be the one to lead the charge, if anyone does, about Iran's gay oppression.
[...] Als hätten die Homosexuellen im Iran nicht schon genug Probleme – jetzt wollen die Juden ihnen auch noch helfen! Aus purem Eigennutz allerdings, haben sie doch vor, den Iran "in Stücke zu [...]
@sami jamil jadallah –
Hi Sami,
Israel claims that it helps gay Palestinians. But according to Israeli human rights groups, not one single Palestinian gay man was given residency in Israel. If they ever do it, it will be to score propaganda points, as when some Zionist student organization paraded a gay Palestinian man on US campuses so he can trash the Palestinians.
@mallee –
Mallee,
I disagree. The LGBT community in Europe and US is not homogeneous. There are queers against the occupation who have been vocal and active in their support of Palestinian rights. We need to support them and make them more visible and not to concede LGBT people to Israeli propaganda. I wish the picture the site chose for my post was with queers holding the Palestinian flag. They exist.
@Amal Amireh – There are always exceptions to any rule. I do not doubt for a moment that there is a minority of gays who are aware of the greater issues of our time, and that their awareness drives them to activism. The point I was trying to make is simply that, in my own experience, the so-called “gay lifestyle” is so filled with trivia that there is just no room for anything substantial. Hedonism, by definition, cancels any possibility of serious intent in anything but personal pleasure. Fashion, style and aspirationalism in daylight, coupled with clubbing, backrooms, sex on site premises such as bathhouses and cruise clubs, and "designer" drugs, at night combine to take up the thought processes of the majority of gay men (and perhaps I should have emphasised that my experience is only with gay men, having had limited exposure to gay women). And given that experience, I stand by my original statement, i.e. that the majority of gay men live a totally hedonistic lifestyle, that allows no room for serious contemplation, or care, about the world outside their own circle of immediate or short-term interest. And that they will therefore be easily manipulated by “the news” and other mainstream media into whatever facile stance. I mean, let’s face it, they’re totally manipulated already by such media, insofar as their obsessive interest in fashion, style, music and manufactured lifestyle. All of this without a thought, or a clue, as to how they're being cynically manipulated into parting with their "pink dollars".
You have no clue what you are writing about. The law was withdrawn due to western pressure. Something that would NOT have worked with a Taleban- or Mullah-regime.
@David Harnasch – @David Harnasch -
I never heard of any "western" criticism nor "western pressure" against any of the numerous antihuman racist jewnazi LAWS the jewnazis have written into their """constitution""" so that they can """lawfully""" rob, vandalize, torture, murder and genocide the Palestinians.
As neither Amal Amireh's article nor the Haaretz article nor any of the comments here mention a "law": what law are you speaking about?
Who are you referring to by "You"?
As to "a Taleban- or Mullah-regime": Imho the jewnazi regime in Israhell is much much worse.
Btw, is your family name really "Harnasch" or is it maybe "Harnarsch"?…
That's strange. As far as I know, Gays aren't allowed to marry in Israel. There are alternative statuses that they can obtain such as "known in public" and a civil marriage, that doesn't really count, because it wasn't performed by a Rabbi, and other ills. Many of them forgo the army, for personal obvious reasons. Because of all this they tend to be Leftists. Admittedly, this hardly promises they'd be pro-Palestinian in this rightist-fascist country of mine, but it seems like the wrong crowd to go for.
[...] flera av gayaktivisterna är vänsterorienterade medan andra är i maskopi med Israel. (Läs: "Israel Using Gays to Bomb Iran" av Amal Amireh). Malms forsök att göra islamofobi till en höger-vänsterfråga är tramsigt, [...]
The Israelis hate gays, they have just arrested Ezra Nawi for protecting Palestinians, he is about to be sentenced, go support him http://www.freeezra.org/
Anything cultural for the Palestine Telegraph Arts section please Amal
[...] more here: Amal Amireh – Israel Using Gays to Bomb Iran | Palestine Think Tank Tags: filled-with, Lifestyle, own-experience, room-for, serious-, the-so-called [...]