The promotion of Tel Aviv tourism at Halifax Pride continues to raise debate, but a member of the Atlantic Jewish Council says the Queer Arabs of Halifax and other concerned groups are misinformed about his organization’s presence at Pride.
Last week, the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action (NSRAP) project launched this petition, declaring solidarity with Queer Arabs of Halifax to demand that Halifax Pride remove Tel Aviv tourism promotions from Pride’s community fair (and other events), and ban its future presence and sponsorship at Pride.
NSRAP Board Member Ardath Whynacht says the organization isn’t interested in anyone being excluded from Pride, instead in making the community fair welcoming for everyone.
“We do not believe that it is important for Halifax Pride to be prioritizing political lobby groups over creating a welcoming space for all sorts of organizations,” says Whynacht.
The petition, which currently has 138 signatures from the likes of local organizations like the Rainbow Refugee Association and members of South House, rejects the inclusion of “any organizations that directly, or indirectly, supports armed conflict where human rights and international humanitarian laws are being violated” and demands that Pride “publicly commit to prioritizing queer and trans people of colour.”
But Schuyler Smith, who sits on the board of the Atlantic Jewish Council, says the narrative built up around the Tel Aviv tourism promotion isn’t totally accurate.
“It’s our local community table, and the petition seems to be either misinformed or misleading calling it the Tel Aviv tourism table,” says Smith.
The Atlantic Jewish Council partners with the national Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs on the tourism promotion, through the CIJA’s “Size Doesn’t Matter” campaign.
“They [Size Doesn’t Matter] help us with the table by providing materials for us and we provide the volunteers,” says Smith.
There is tourism material present, promoting Tel Aviv’s large Pride festival, but it’s all coming from the Toronto-based organization and not from Israel itself. Smith feels that distinction is important.
“We’re talking about our community, and what they do positively,” he says. “Israel isn’t a perfect country, [but] I still think it’s right that we celebrate our achievements.”
Smith, who says he hasn’t consulted with Queer Arabs or Halifax Pride on the issue, believes that barring the tourism table would mean excluding Jewish people from Pride.
“We’re not attacking another group, and trying to shut down a positive message does not add to the discussion,” says Smith. “I think the most important thing we can do about a topic like Israel is talk about it.”
Last week, a spokesperson for Queer Arabs Halifax told The Coast that the Tel Aviv tourism promotion prevented them, and other Arabs in the LGTBQIA community, from feeling safe participating in Pride events.
The NSRAP echoes those comments, saying the presence of Tel Aviv promotion at Pride is pink-washing—using Israel’s LGBTQIA friendliness to distract from the country’s policies and actions against the Palestinian people.
“From our perspective, and this is in line with Queer Arabs of Halifax, this is a really important year for queer communities to be looking at the relationship between race and queerness,” says Whynacht, referencing Black Lives Matter’s demonstration at Toronto’s Pride parade.
“We know that for much of Halifax’s history, Arabic was the second most common language in Halifax. We also have a big influx of Syrian refugees coming to our community…So as an organization, we’re very much invested in making sure that our official, and even our unofficial [LGBTQIA] celebrations are welcoming for Arabic-speaking queer people.”
Halifax Pride’s board of directors say they received a letter from the Queer Arabs of Halifax and several partner organizations about the issue on June 23, and met with the group about their concerns earlier this month. In a statement released on Sunday, Pride says it’s been listening to the “diverse perspectives” about “Size Doesn’t Matter,” but the board feels it can’t decide its future place at Pride events without more community guidance.
“We have been, and are, listening,” the statement from Pride reads. “Our intent has always been and continues to be that of having an open, forthright and productive dialogue which will enable us all to move forward as one.”
Smith says that whatever the result, he’s hopeful it won’t mean excluding anyone from Halifax’s Pride festivities.
“If anything comes of this, I just hope it’s positive.”
Pride plans to host a post-festival community forum in August, which will bring forward concerns at the organization’s annual general meeting in the fall.
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This article appears in Jul 21-27, 2016.
Is a queer person safer in a) Israel b) Turkey,Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, Iraq,Yemen, Kuwait, UAE, Algeria, Aden. Oman
Here’s some guidance: Halifax Pride needs to stop cleaning and open the doors to everyone, including those who – in the name of inclusivity – they excluded in the past. They need to stop being a political organization and just one that develops a festival. If Joe doesn’t want to fuck Andy, so be it; stop making them fuck!
With respect to The RAP, fuck off and take your political agenda elsewhere. Why are you creating more in-fighting when the community is already divisive enough?
I no longer celebrate Pride nor so I participate in sponsored events. This just affirms my reasons why.
George, the gay Arab, needs to realise that Jews have been the greatest advocates for human rights.
And today’s Onion headline reads – “Area Activists To Combat Bigotry and Hate By Indulging In The World’s Oldest”
Yes, yes – before you SJW’s begin lecturing me – I do realize that there is a world of difference between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism. It’s just that since the toxic rhetoric, pathological hatreds and ultimate endgame are identical, it’s easy to get confused on that score.
It is rather horrible to think that the Pride movement here, as in many other places recently, has started to become so factious that there is not too much ‘common glue’ to hold us together as there once was.
With seemingly a never ending stream of new groups and smaller and smaller factions, and also those who seem hell bent on expelling others so that they can be included, we are almost to the point of just imploding upon ourselves. Perhaps it all should just collapse as it seems that in the years since we have become ‘legal’ – we have more to fear from many within the Rainbow umbrella and not those who were our former tormentors – such as police and redneck types who liked to use us for punching bags.
If it keeps up we will be the ones to destroy Pride and what it once was about more than the current and former ‘haters’ could. I am so happy that my Disco and salad cruising days are long gone, as even though we generally lived on the downlow at least we had fun together and shared our day to day joys and miseries with each other and managed to come through it. At least then we all faced a common enemy.
Now, we quibble and have become so sanitized that there is not much left to what we once were. And when ‘inclusion of allegedly ‘all’ means excluding ‘some’ – well it time to get the DJ to turn off the music and for us to head home, as the party is really over and in a way our former (and some still current) enemies will have won after all. Things may not have been perfect in the past, but it was often better than the mewling babble of discordant voices it often seems to be these days.
There are many good people out there who are still working for full and meaningful inclusion and hopefully they may be able to steer things from the brink, but it will be a hard act to pull off. Politics in groups is one thing but polarization does not help much at all. I sound so very cynical but truly hope that in the end I am wrong and that people can see what we have in common, not what separates us. Remember first we are HUMAN, the rest is just different flavours of what someone has taught us.
I hope that those who have commented thus far will make their views known directly to NSRAP and Halifax Pride. To encourage one group to feel less excluded by excluding another is just ridiculous.
And as a matter of clarity: when the only country in the Middle East singled out for this kind of opprobrium from Queer Arabs Halifax is Israel, then it’s actually not so much a human rights issue as it is garden-variety Jew hatred. I hope that in general readers of this (and similar) articles don’t need to be told this, but just in case: you and your same-sex partner can hold hands walking down the street in Jerusalem, or Haifa, or Tel Aviv, or pretty much anywhere else in Israel. If someone tries to hurt you, the law is on your side. Members of Queer Arabs Halifax certainly should be aware of that – when was the last Pride March in Saudi Arabia? Iraq? Iran?
I will add this: hijacking the Pride flag raising, a ceremony to celebrate love and inclusion, by castigating a democratic nation that fully supports LGBTQ rights flies in the face of inclusion and encourages the practice of hatred. That is not my Halifax. That is not the Pride that I know.
So “NSRAP Board Member Ardath Whynacht says the organization isn’t interested in anyone being excluded from Pride, instead in making the community fair welcoming for everyone” – Do new Syrian refugees count more than the Jewish population that’s been here for years? Come on, Pride! This is just anti-Israelwashing. Show me the Gay Iran Parade please….
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Queer Arabs of Halifax should get used to this being an inclusive, multicultural country. We don’t banish groups that make us uncomfortable. It is quite disturbing that a spokesman has now brought Syrian refugees into the picture. Is she saying that Syrian refugees can now object to the presence of Jews in Halifax? Has no one explained to them that Canada is multiracial and multicultural and that newcomers immigrate to this country to escape the kind of intolerance now being promoted?
JOEBLOW the answer to your question is- depends, is the queer person white skinned? do they have a blue or green ID card? do they benefit or die from apartheid? etc…… in short, the racialized and economic reality of Queer people matters in Israel and it matters here.
You all. Nobody is banishing Jews or Jewish organizations from the parade. This is about the use of gay money and the image of tolerance to cover up and justify Israel’s continued violations of human rights. We need to ask ourselves why we (Jews) choose to promote propaganda for Israel at Pride, rather than actually supporting our Jewish and Semite Queer community members here by boldly standing for unity and human rights.
I see they pulled the story…
Hey folks. We didn’t pull the story… the site is acting up on us. Should be resolved ASAP!
I’ll first question the ridiculous statement that queers are safe in Israel. First of all, queers are not “safe” anywhere, but Israel failed to protect its own queer people from a fundamentalist who attacked queers at Pride, went to jail, was released, said very publicly he would do it again, and then did it again, in the name of Judaism. The “safe” state of Israel could not or did not stop this lunatic. Secondly, when the state engages in apartheid practices, not all queers are safe. Israel is an apartheid regime, modelled like the South African apartheid regime. Human rights for one are human rights for all. Full stop. Are there other horrible regimes in the Middle East? Yes, of course! I’d be boycotting the Kuwait tourist booth too, but wait, there isn’t one. Israel is singled out only because Israel itself is engaged in a uniquely global pinkwashing campaign. This is completely separate from supporting and embracing local Jewish LGBTI community members from being part of Pride. Those (many straight voices here) who force Jewish queers to tow the pink-washing line and tell them they aren’t welcome at our Pride if Tel-Aviv Tourism is not welcome, are the true dividers of our community.