‘Pinkwashing’ Conference Head Claims Dissenters are ‘Israeli Operatives’

Bizarre clash of ideals at CUNY, where Israel is accused of using its gay-rights record to conceal its oppression of Palestinians

By James Kirchick

In April, the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at the City University of New York hosted a conference on “Homonationalism and Pinkwashing.” If neither term is familiar, consider yourself one of the lucky few who has avoided exposure to the bizarre new inversion of language that seeks to turn Israel’s history of generally respecting gay rights into the leading edge of a sinister new campaign to justify the oppression of Palestinians.

“Homonationalism,” according to a description on the conference website, is the apparently noxious new phenomenon that “occurs when sub-sectors of specific gay communities achieve legal parity with heterosexuals and then embrace racial and religious supremacy ideologies”—including being proud of Israel’s record of respecting and upholding the rights of gay citizens and visitors. “Pinkwashing,” meanwhile, describes a “deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.” This latter term was first mentioned by Rutgers academic Jasbir Puar in a 2010 Guardian article but gained genuine notoriety thanks to a 2011 New York Times op-ed by CUNY professor and conference organizer Sarah Schulman.

In that op-ed, Schulman claimed that “Increasing gay rights have caused some people of good will to mistakenly judge how advanced a country is by how it responds to homosexuality.” A country’s record on gay rights, however, is nearly always a telling indicator of its “advancement” (a curious word choice for an otherwise reliable expositor of moral equivalence as Schulman). And not only is Schulman’s argument a non sequitur in that many of the most vocal gay-rights activists in Israel are also fervent opponents of the occupation, it is a critique that she peculiarly applies only to the Jewish state. For instance, there is no condemnation of France covering up its failure to integrate Arabs by promoting its wine industry, or China’s obscuring its appalling human-rights record by promoting the Great Wall.

Continue reading.