Happy Pride month to all Jews and our true allies.
On this occasion, as someone who used to volunteer for the Jerusalem Open House (the gay community center) let me offer you a bit of info about our country's LGBTQ history (and correct some anti-Israel distortions).
This is Chaim (Herman) Cohen.
He was born in Germany in 1911, and came to Israel in 1930, to study torah at a yeshiva here. Inspired by his Jewish studies, he decided to turn to the study of law, returning to Germany for that goal and to get married. In 1933, with the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, he decided to move to Israel permanently. In that sense, he's considered a refugee and Holocaust survivor. His younger brother Leo was murdered by the Nazis.
In 1950, he was appointed Israel's attorney general. In this role, he came across an anti-sodomy law passed by the British Mandate in 1936 (which prohibited all oral and anal sex, including between two men), and which the State of Israel automatically inherited once it was founded in 1948 (source in Hebrew). First he wanted to cancel it, but his jurisdiction fell short of that. As it was within his authority to instruct the Israeli police and state prosecution to ignore it, he did so in 1953. He explained his instruction:
"I thought it was my duty not to uphold a law, which I saw as immoral. [...] And if you should ask, in what is the immorality of the law prohibiting intercourse between men, I will reply to you that such a law against any consenting and private contact between adults contradicts the freedom of man over his own body, and depriving this freedom is a grave infringement against one of the basic human rights."
For comparison's sake, in March 1952, Alan Turing (who saved countless lives for the UK and the allies during WWII) was brought to trial for homosexual consensual private acts, was convicted, and his security clearance was revoked.
In 1978, a special committee of the Knesset (Israel's parliament) recommended several changes to laws addressing various sexual acts, including a recommendation to cancel this anti-sodomy law. In 1980, Israel's first right wing government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, accepted the committee's recommendations with a corresponding bill (which eventually didn't pass). The bill was presented a second time in 1986, and was passed into law in 1988, decriminalizing same-sex intercourse in Israel (source in Hebrew).
For comparison's sake, in 1990, there were still over 110 jurisdictions in the world criminalizing homosexuality in the world. In the 2020's, RIGHT NOW, there are over 60 that still do.
This is Dr. Doron Maizel (may his memory be a blessing) on the left, with his partner Adir Steiner.
Doron was an army doctor. He was married to a woman with whom he had 3 daughters, before coming out to her in the late 1970's, getting a divorce and eventually openly moving in with his partner Adir. They were together since 1983. Being open about his sexual orientation meant that while Doron was allowed to serve, the same notion that gay men are a security threat (which was applied to Alan Turing), and therefore can't be allowed to serve in top/secret posts in the army, was to stop the promotion that he was about to get. Doron went to visit Ariel Sharon (at the time, Israel's right wing Security Minister, who's in charge of the army) in the latter's private home. IDK what was said in that meeting, but after that, Adir underwent the security check that all partners of a high ranking army officer do, and then Doron got his promotion. When Doron passed away in 1991 from cancer, Adir demanded to be and was recognized as an army widower. Doron's official army commemoration page states, "Left behind a mother, three daughters, a brother and a boyfriend."
Here's Adir with Doron's picture during a 2012 interview:
In 1993, the army order that were meant to prevent Doron and other gay soldiers from serving in certain posts was officially canceled. In 1999, a soldier born as male asked to serve as a woman, because that's what she actually was (this would have made this soldier's service shorter, and in that sense "cost" the army). The request was accepted, and since then, trans soldiers serve in the gender they identify with.
The story of Israel's LGBTQ rights isn't only glitter and fairies. Just like I can talk about a lot of progress that the state made in equalizing our rights in many domains (because I have), I could also talk about the rights we still don't have (because I've done that, too). The situation here isn't perfect (though as far as I'm aware, it isn't anywhere in the world, there are at least a few rights denied to the queer community in every country I know of). But when I look at our history, I feel like Israel isn't just one of the more queer-friendly countries in the world, it was also at certain moments at the very forefront of the struggle to recognizing queer people as deserving of equal treatment.
Which is maybe the most instinctual reason for my fury at the form of the Israel's demonization using the false notion of "pink washing." It is DERANGED to think Chaim Cohen, in 1953, gave his pro-gay instruction in relation to an occupation that Israel wasn't being blamed of until after the Six Day War in 1967, and which didn't gain attention from the regular people (as opposed to foreign politicians, who didn't give a shit about Israel's record on gay rights) until the Derben Conference in 2000. Not to mention how the idea that having a good gay rights record is something a country can brag about is probably even younger than that conference.
The pink washing accusation is de-humanizing. It suggests that it can't be that Israelis simply have a set of values which happens to align with the west's when it comes to the gay community (or women's rights, or ecological awareness, or freedom of speech, or any of the other positives Israel has, which position it high in the Freedom Index, and which anti-Israel activists label "washing" with one color or another). No, the history of these fields in the Jewish state is all about what non-Jews will say about us! It's like you can't fathom that we have an existence of our own, and minds of our own, and desires and wants and struggles of our own, and not everything is centered about what you think of us.
And the source of this self-centered thinking seems to connect with an inability to accept the Jewish state as anything other than the ultimate evil. Because Israel has to be the supervillain of the story, then it can't have a single positive. Everything about it has to be black, otherwise that challenges the black and white narrative that's been developed to demonize the Jewish state. So if it is revealed that there's any domain in which Israel is actually doing good things, reflecting a respect for human rights or a closeness to the values that the anti-Israel crowd claims to uphold, then it must be just a cover up for how Israel treats the Palestinians.
Essentially, the pink/purple/green/whatever washing accusations are as insane and antisemitic, just like claiming that Jews have won so many Nobel Prizes (a reflection of how much our people have benefited humanity) to distract the world from all the non-Jewish kids we kill to use their blood to bake Passover matzos.
But it's actually worse. Because in the process of demonizing Israel, Israeli Arab and Palestinian queers get thrown under the bus, too. As a gay activist, I'm familiar with so many gay and trans Israeli Arabs who get to have a good life thanks to Israel's good gay rights record, who are aware that if the anti-Israel crowd is successful in de-legitimizing and destroying this state, they're fucked as well. I know a lot of gay and trans Palestinians, who only catch a break when they come to the Jerusalem Open House, or generally to Israel, the only place where they can be themselves safely. I know so many queer Palestinians who are scared for their lives because of the violent intolerance of their own families, society and governments. And all the western countries from which the anti-Israel people come from refuse them entry as refugees persecuted for their sexual orientation (yes, I have gay Palestinian friends who have tried, only to be turned down by country after country, no matter how "liberal" or "pro-Palestinian" they officially claim to be).
Meanwhile, gay Palestinians can get temporary asylum in Israel (please don't tell me it's "pink washing" again, when no one from the anti-Israel crowd will even acknowledge this fact) if they fear for their lives, it's just not a proper solution, because just like Palestinian terrorists can get into Israel, carry out an attack and murder innocent civilians, Palestinian homophobes can get inside as well, and murder the queer people who had fled here.
And just to make reality a tad more complex, you know how for the anti-Israel crowd, the worst of the worst of Israeli society, are the religious ("Fanatic! Extremist! Violent!") settlers? I know of more than one case where those religious settlers are the ones who are helping gay Palestinians, but here's one that made it into the Israeli news.
Life is just not black and white, human nature is complex, Israel is a country where human beings are more than just their stance on the conflict and whether foreigners agree with it or not, and the "pink washing accusation" black and white washes all our colors away, trying to reduce us into caricatures that fit into their simplistic, reductive narrative, so they can go on playing "white/western/outsider savior" to the "poor Palestinians" without actually caring about many of the poorest, most marginalized ones.
This vid isn't a representation of all gay Israeli Arabs, but it's def a voice you will not see acknowledged on the anti-Israel side:
Happy Pride to everyone seeing us, all of us, Israelis and Palestinians, queer and straight, with all of our humanity and complexity!
(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)
