We, the Arabs and queer organizations undersigned, are outraged at the decision USSF to allow the group Stand With Us ("Respáldanos") use the Forum as a platform to make a rose wash Israeli crimes in the region. Stand with Us cynically manipulates the struggle of queer people in the Middle East through its workshop entitled "LGBT Liberation in the Middle East." ( http://organize.ussf2010.org/ws/lgbtqi-liberation-middle-east )
Stand with Us
defines itself as "an organization of Zionist propaganda," and describes herself as " an international educational organization that seeks to ensure that tell the Israeli version communities, universities, libraries, media and churches through brochures, conferences, lectures, visits to Israel, and thousands of pages of Internet resources. " ( http://www.standwithus.com/FLYERS/?type=focus&wc=23 ) Stand with Us
has no link with the LGBT movement in the Middle East regardless of its contacts with Israeli LGBT Zionist court yet and aims to discuss our movements. It has no credibility in our region and as organizations that work from within the Middle East denounced his attempt to use us, our struggles, our lives and our experiences as a platform for pro-Israeli propaganda.
From the brutal wars of Israel in Gaza and in Lebanon in 2006, particularly after the unprovoked attack was the flotilla of activists headed to Gaza, the Israeli government has been increasingly marginalized by international reports and weakened by the growing success of the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). To remedy this, has launched a massive public relations campaign using organizations like Stand with Us to convince the world that Israel is not a brutal colonial state but a free democracy in which human rights in general and in particular LGBT rights are respected and maintained. Stand with Us uses the language of the rights of women and LGBT people in a deceptive way to hide the fact that institutionalized discrimination is enshrined within the State of Israel.
Our struggle is deeply interwoven with the struggles of all oppressed people, and we can not accept that we use as a tool to discredit the Palestinian cause. Stand with Us wants to convince the world that the Palestinian cause is invalid for the homophobia that exists in Palestinian society, as if homophobia did not exist everywhere, as if the struggles for justice were based on the inherent " goodness "of the oppressed and not the principles of freedom, justice and equality for everyone, everywhere. Stand with Us would compartmentalize our beliefs, our lives and identities in a way that solidarity with the struggle exclude queer solidarity with others. While
Stand with Us is quick to point out the oppression of queers Palestinians under Palestinian Authority and Hamas, conveniently forget that these same queers are not immune to the bombs, the siege, apartheid and the destruction that the Israeli government imposed on them daily. They forget that the multiple layers of oppression that Israel imposes no distinction between heterosexual and homosexual Palestinians.
We refuse to be manipulated by anyone, whether our own government oppressive or the Zionist lobby that aims to take our struggle to legitimize the State of Israel and its policies, giving our governments new excuses to go against us. If you want to learn from our movements and struggles, get involved with us and not to those who would use us as pawns in the Israeli campaign to conceal its crimes rose painting his image. Include
Stand with Us in the U.S. Social Forum is a blatant disregard for the organizers. We request the Forum to explain this inclusion, because it violates its own principles of anti-racism, to unite the oppressed communities, to give priority to the voices that are often marginalized, and oppose the policy U.S. foreign. The Social Forum should meet their own criteria. Watchful waiting your response to this situation. Helem
Lebanese Protection for LGBT
http://www.helem.net/
Al-Qaws
for sexual diversity and gender in Palestinian society
http://www.alqaws.org /
ASWAT
Palestinian Lesbian
http://www.aswatgroup.org/
Queers
Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
http://pqbds.wordpress.com/
Lyrics: Maggie Schmitt
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