Forget Pinkwashing; Israel Has a Lavender Scare

Speaking of McCarthyism, 43 veterans of an elite Israeli intelligence unit have not only come out against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians but declared that they will no longer “take part in the state’s actions against Palestinians.” The intelligence on Palestinians that they gathered, they claim, “is used for political persecution,” which “does not allow for people to lead normal lives, and fuels more violence, further distancing us from the end of the conflict.” According to the Times:

In the testimony and in interviews, though, the Unit 8200 veterans described exploitative activities focused on innocents whom Israel hoped to enlist as collaborators. They said information about medical conditions and sexual orientation were among the tidbits collected. They said that Palestinians lacked legal protections from harassment, extortion and injury.

One of the hallmarks of a repressive state, particularly in the twentieth century, is the use of blackmail against gays and lesbians in order to get them to collaborate and inform on their friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and other potential or actual dissidents. The Stasi was notorious for turning gays and lesbians into collaborators (see pp. 567ff); one of the key figures in Timothy Garton Ash’s The File—Schuldt—is just such an informant. So pervasive was the use of this type of blackmail during the Cold War that it also figured prominently on the US side: one of the main justifications proffered for drumming out gays and lesbians from the federal government during the McCarthy era was that they were susceptible to being blackmailed by the Soviets. Though no one ever found a single instance of that.

Now here comes news that the Israeli state is doing the same thing among Palestinians. It will be interesting to see how the people who were so rightly appalled by the Stasi’s recruitment of gays and lesbians to a repressive state apparatus—including Israel defenders like James Kirchick—and who routinely hold up Israel’s record on gays and lesbians as a measure of its freedom and democracy (critics of Israel call that “pinkwashing”) will rationalize this away.

21 Comments

  1. Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 17, 2014 at 10:07 am | #

    Here is how.

    Hasbarists will point to the homophobia of Muslim states in the Middle East or northern Africa and claim that Israel’s efforts to recruit Palestinian LGBTs as spys constitute an effort to “protect” them from Islamic fundamentalism. If they agree to spy, see, they can then justify their collaboration as part of the project to liberate LGBTs from the repression of Hamas or PT Islamism. Once these regimes are replaced with something more to Israel’s liking, Arab Palestinian LGBTs will find the liberation they seek as Israeli control becomes the backstop for their human rights.

    See how well that works out?

    • Straw Man September 17, 2014 at 1:46 pm | #

      I don’t think they’ll say that at all, so don’t construct straw men.

      What they might say, and what I will, is that there’s an important difference in that it’s not Israel that is homophobic, but the Palestinian territories. Granted, the tactic is the same, but the retirbution the LGBT community will face is from Hamas, not the IDF.

      Now, I’m not exactly sure of the significance of this, but it is a difference, and it seems worthwhile to think about this. Without condoning this practice, it is a practice in which no one comes off particularly clean.

      • Corey Robin September 17, 2014 at 1:51 pm | #

        Oh, I don’t disagree with most of that. I think you’re quite right. But you’re right in the same way that you’d be right about the Stasi. Formally, by the 1970s, the East German legal system, had decriminalized homosexuality. And the Stasi had an air of internal tolerance around the question, within the organization itself. But it also made major use of the widespread homophobia in East German society. It was perfectly happy in fact for that homophobia to continue b/c it could be so easily exploited. So I don’t think in the end what Israel is doing now is all that different from what the Stasi did then.

      • Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 17, 2014 at 1:52 pm | #

        Burn, “Straw Man”.

        You: “What they might say, and what I will, is that there’s an important difference in that it’s not Israel that is homophobic, but the Palestinian territories.”

        Thank you for making my point for me being acting as an instance of my prediction.

  2. Straw Man September 17, 2014 at 2:00 pm | #

    I don’t really follow your comments, Donald. And not really because there complicated, it’s just the grammar.

    As for the Stasi connection, I agree with most of what you wrote Corey. I’m just trying to introduce some of the nuance that might be lacking. It’s one thing to be homophobic, and another to see that the homophobia of your (perceived) enemy is a strategic asset to you. I guess we could ask which is worse: treating your own population with intolerance, or cultivating the intolerance by which the government of your enemy treats their own population, but I think that might head too much towards equivocation. Without going that far, and without imputing benevolence to the Israeli leadership and malevolence to the Palestinian leadership, it is difficult to negotiate with someone who truly holds essentialist beliefs, rather than someone who foments them for strategic reasons. In the latter case, your dealing with essentially rational arguments, even if they are entirely reprehensible and scurrilous examples of instrumental reason.

    • Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 17, 2014 at 2:26 pm | #

      “it is difficult to negotiate with someone who truly holds essentialist beliefs” [we are to presume that this the Palestinian leadership], “rather than someone who foments them for strategic reasons” [we are to presume this is the Israelis]

      And what cause do we have to assume that BOTH do not exist in the same party?

      And what cause do we have to presume that the Palestinians could sustain the kind of political power that would allow them to be guilty of both at the the same time in their conflict with the Israelis? What Israeli essentialist belief gives a weapon to the Palestinians against the Israelis — instead of it being routinely used by the Israelis against the Palestinians?

  3. Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 17, 2014 at 2:08 pm | #

    The issue is not the IDF — the issue is that another weapon against the Palestinians is the supposed modernity of Israel. That is, the modernity of a state that insists on a colonial project and will mine a subject population for its most vulnerable elements and deploy them against the entirety of the subject population. It would have been interesting if the apartheid regime of South Africa would have tried such a stunt. It is also worth noting that, LGBT or not — Palestinians are still a racialized group living under colonial occupation. If they would face retribution from Hamas, what would they face from the IDF? LGBT Palestinians are still Palestinian Arabs. Threats to be turned over to Hamas’ tender mercies should LGBTs get scruples about spying would be the real social control mechanism. What would offend non-LGBT Palestinians more, LGBT status or treasonous acts against a subject population? I don’t envy any LGBT faced with IDF blandishments versus Hamas’ homophobia. What kind of society requires this strategy for its “security”? Is Israel such a society that even deserves security if this is what turns to as legitimate practice? If that don’t demonstrate homophobia, Hamas’ own nothwithstanding, then what in hell does??

  4. Peter Dorman September 17, 2014 at 2:12 pm | #

    I don’t think this one is too difficult. First, of course, defenders of Israel will ignore this issue and see if it goes away. It may well. But suppose it doesn’t. Then:

    “Israel regrets the personal hardship that may result from its intelligence operations. This has nothing to do with bigotry, however. Above all, we should bear in mind that we are dealing with terrorists. By aligning themselves against Israel’s right to exist, and by participating in one of the greatest crimes of history, the continuing genocidal attack on Jews and their homeland, they are guilty of a much greater and more lethal bigotry. Criticisms of our courageous defense forces are nothing more than attempts to distract us from this fundamental truth.

    “In addition, while we recognize that on occasion innocent people may run afoul of our intelligence work, it should be obvious that Israel’s values, which respect the human rights of all people, cannot be compared to the values of Hamas and its accomplices. Our laws are clear on the protection of civil rights; theirs violate these rights as a matter of ideology. We truly regret the human costs of our defense efforts, even as we know that our very existence is at stake, threatened by terrorists and haters of Jews. They openly embrace bigotry and cruelty. Any attempt at equivalence is simply dishonest.”

    I feel like I could write this in my sleep.

    • Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 17, 2014 at 2:15 pm | #

      You see, Peter Dorman gets it! That was so well done that I suspect some hasbarist will plagarize you, Peter.

      • Straw Man September 17, 2014 at 2:25 pm | #

        You’re talking the language of an ideologue? He gets what? You’re exact point? And short of full agreement, others just don’t get “it”?

        If you see yourself as possessing the truth, and others as possessing nothing but falsehood, you’ve offered up a rationalization for not listening. And I’ve never found not listening to be particularly conducive to strong thought.

        • Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 17, 2014 at 2:28 pm | #

          The point is that the language of the ideologue is the current state of affairs when states attempt to defend their indefensible acts. That language then becomes the common sense of accepted political discourse.

  5. Howard Swerdloff September 17, 2014 at 2:14 pm | #

    In case you haven’t seen it, check out the OpEd in today’s Times recounting the NSA’s role in all of this. They pass on all kinds of personal information gleaned from US digital sources to Israeli Unit 8200 or use in blackmailing Palestinians to become collaborators…

    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/opinion/israels-nsa-scandal.html?_r=0

  6. Straw Man September 17, 2014 at 2:33 pm | #

    The vast majority of voices on this blog, including most of those opposed to things like BDS, haven’t used the language of the current state of affairs/ideology. It is possible to be opposed to BDS, and it is possible to support a two state solution, and it is possible to be opposed to the right of return (within 67 borders), without being an ideologue. It is also possible to be a Zionist without being a colonialist.

    If none of these distinctions seem possible to you, the problem is that not that there are no distinctions, but that you fail to see them.

    • Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 17, 2014 at 2:41 pm | #

      Distinctions have a stretegic purpose. One of which should be a recognition of lived reality and the possibilies of change available to affect that reality, and the degrees of change that some would tolerate and have to power to stop/effectuate.

      Listing distinctions is fine. Unless it becomes a game by which the weak are prevailed upon to continue to live under oppression.

      • Straw Man September 17, 2014 at 2:45 pm | #

        Distinctions sometimes have a strategic purpose, and sometimes they simply exist. Throughout my posts, I have drawn attention to some that I thought important to note, and have had them repeatedly dismissed as propaganda. My point in the previous comment is that I don’t think I’m peddling propaganda, but that I do think you’re failing to miss important distinctions. You haven’t once really addressed any of the content I raised, which I’d have been happy to discuss, so much as you’ve refused to talk about any of it.

        So, there’s no real conversation taking place, and I guess we’re done.

  7. s. wallerstein September 17, 2014 at 3:41 pm | #

    If I were gay or lesbian, I would prefer to live in Israel than under Hamas, but what strikes me here, as always, is the Israeli hypocrisy, to advertize themselves as a haven for gay people and then to blackmail them. Again and again, we come across such a tremendous distance between the Israeli discourse about democracy and human rights and their rather brutal practices. With Hamas, I suspect that everyone knows exactly what they stand for.

    There’s a saying of La Rochefoucauld, that hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to
    virtue, which, in this context, means that at least the Israelis pay lip service to gay rights, but over the years, I’ve become so disillusioned with the Israelis, as have many people, that I’m not willing to grant them the benefits of any doubts.

    If you’re going to sell yourself as a model democracy, as a little eden in the Middle East, as an oasis of liberal values, as an economy based on brotherhood and the kibbutz, then be prepared for rage and indignation when you reveal yourselves as major human rights violators, war criminals, ethnic cleansers, colonizers and blackmailers of sexual diversity.

    • NattyB September 17, 2014 at 7:23 pm | #

      I know, so much of US elite discourse seems trapped in this baby boomer Amber viewing it through the prism of Paul Newman in Exodus that made the “Desert Bloom,” like — with that frame of reference, it’s hard to conceptualize that that “little plucky country that could,” is actually an apartheid state run by fascists.

  8. Barry September 18, 2014 at 4:41 pm | #

    “Now here comes news that the Israeli state is doing the same thing among Palestinians. It will be interesting to see how the people who were so rightly appalled by the Stasi’s recruitment of gays and lesbians to a repressive state apparatus—including Israel defenders like James Kirchick—and who routinely hold up Israel’s record on gays and lesbians as a measure of its freedom and democracy (critics of Israel call that “pinkwashing”) will rationalize this away.”

    What is the current situation when supporters of Israel have to even criticize it, let alone condemn it, or give up their former principles? I’d place my money 100:1 on giving up principles.

  9. Brian September 19, 2014 at 12:19 pm | #

    Somewhat unrelated, but very problematic panel at the Brooklyn Book Fest. This is an easy one to boycott, I’d think:

    http://j.mp/1pkuVAl

  10. Donald Pruden, Jr., a/k/a The Enemy Combatant September 22, 2014 at 12:04 pm | #

    I post this link from “Electronic Intifada” in reply to those people who may see Israeli willingness to blackmail Palestinian sexual minorities as the lesser evil against Hamas’ homophobia, as if the lesser evil derives from otherwise progressive tendency in Israeli political culture. A culture, we must note, which is one of settler colonialism that seeks the displacement of the indigenous population, and the kind of militaristic social infrastructure that facilitates this project.

    alQaws issued a statement and it is cited in the EI article. Here is an excerpt from that statement, as it gets to the heart of the matter:

    “This isolation of sexuality as a discrete site of oppression bolsters mainstream LGBT rights discourses which, historically, make this oppression legible only through the frame of purported Palestinian “homophobia” and Israeli “tolerance.”

    “In this sense, singling out homosexuality strengthens pinkwashing and, in particular, the specific and false pinkwashing narrative of the queer Palestinian who must remain closeted within their community, living in secret, always worried about being outed, and looking to Israel as the all-powerful, all-knowing entity capable of protecting their queer life and rendering it intelligible. Falling prey to this logic only entrenches a false, racist binary that actively frames Palestine and Palestinians as homophobic versus Israel and Israelis as sexually tolerant and liberal.”

    And another, if it ain’t clear enough:

    “Finally, Israel is interested in portraying itself as positive, progressive, liberal, and democratic by, on the one hand, expressing its support for LGBT rights/people and, on the other, by presenting itself as queer Palestinians’ savior. Within this strategy, if Palestinians are going to have any access to or practice of “non-normative sexualities,” Israel is going to make sure it is somehow involved, so it can control and marshal those people and behaviors to serve its own interests.

    “This is true whether it is exploiting occupied people’s fears in order to make them collaborators or taking credit for progressive politics within Palestine vis-a-vis sexuality. However, it’s important not to lose sight of the big picture: the issue of queer Palestinian collaborators is not about (homo)sexuality any more than it is about being progressive. It’s about colonization.”

    Bam!

    I will add no comment of my own, except to say “check it out” (the article, with the alQaws statement embedded therein): http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/dont-single-out-homosexuality-response-israel-blackmail-revelations-palestinians

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