#quaia

[thecraggus]

#amovieaday2017 #alldogsgotoheaven #whatthecraggussaw #quaia #RIP

[yahoonewsdigest-ca]

Toronto election: Pride, 'Israeli apartheid' issue heats Chow-Tory debate; Doug Ford begins campaign

Canada News

Toronto election: Pride, 'Israeli apartheid' issue heats Chow-Tory debate; Doug Ford begins campaign

The front-runner in Toronto's mayoral election on Friday night reignited a hot-button topic that seemed to have largely dissipated when John Tory said he would not fund the city's Pride parade if the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) was allowed to participate. Speaking in a debate at the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, which opponent Olivia Chow also attended, Tory called the group's message anti-Semitic. While both Tory and Chow "deplore" the group's message, Chow, who sat on Toronto City Council for years before she became an MP, said it wouldn't be fair to revoke Pride's funding, specifically a city grant of $160,000 that represents about 10 per cent of Pride's total budget, based on one group's participation.

I would not be funding a parade that has those people welcome in their ranks. And I have said, they can go have their demonstration anywhere else they want that is not a publicly funded parade, publicly funded at least in part by the taxpayers of Toronto.

John Tory, Toronto mayoral candidate

The issue was raised again at a debate on LGBT issues at Ryerson University that evening, where the candidates repeated and defended their positions. As for the QuAIA issue, Toronto's city manager and city solicitor examined the issue between 2011 when it arose and again in 2013, and found that the term "Israeli apartheid" did not violate the city's anti-discrimination policy and thus did not justify revoking city funds; Chow said she would stick with the city's ruling, while Tory said he thought the city's top lawyer made a mistake in her assessment that the phrase is "protected speech" and not a human rights violation. Meanwhile, Councillor Doug Ford begins his campaign Saturday in his home area of Etobicoke; Ford is now a mayoral candidate after switching names on the ballot before the nomination deadline following the hospitalization of his brother, Mayor Rob Ford, who was later diagnosed with a rare form of cancer from a tumour in his abdomen.

For this guy to suddenly make this thing an issue again when it is, like, so 2011 — it’s the height of foolishness. Why would he do that? Obviously he has no idea what’s happening at Pride, what process this has been going through. I don’t know whose votes he thinks he’s going to win with this, but my Lord.

Tim McCaskell, a QuAIA organizer, told the Toronto Star about Tory's comments

[ntafraidofruins]

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Aotearoa protest the inclusion of the Israeli embassy at Auckland Pride.

[antonioandradejr]

E quem se julga a nata, cuidado pra não quaiá!

Roubei de um amigo

[assholecollection-blog]

a transphobic attempt to censor trans participation in pride toronto

"But it turns out the other side can apparently lodge an unlimited number of complaints. Hence only days after the previous ruling was released, we received a new complaint from an individual I’ve previously never heard of— one Joe Clark. And in a word, Joe’s complaint (which has been posted onlinehere) against QuAIA (and Pride, and the DRP itself, and, well, everybody) is hilarious  Not necessarily hilarious in a good way, mind you, but hilarious nonetheless  As a QuAIA member, I’ll take a moment to present a few of the highlights below."

[suchagoodexcuse]

Palestinian solidarity at #Toronto #Pride #Dyke #March. #iaw #solidarity #queer #quaia

[thomemberton]

[solchrom]

Within Israel, politicians, academics, journalists and activists frequently describe the state’s treatment of Palestinians as apartheid. South Africans who lived through the apartheid era have also accused Israel of committing the same crimes, if not worse. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, “If I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa.” The Congress of South African Trade Unions and the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa both declared that Israel is practising apartheid in the Occupied Territories.

Apartheid 101 « Queers Against Israeli Apartheid

The takeaway: there's a substantial body of opinion suggesting that the "apartheid" label is appropriate. If some people find that uncomfortable or odious ... too bad.

Related posts:

... there are deeply distressing echoes of apartheid in the occupied territories ...