A misleading report in The Guardian suggests that an Israeli group has been banned from Madrid's gay pride parade, in protest at Israel's massacre of passengers aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May, just because the participating group is Israeli. The report says:
A delegation of gay residents of Tel Aviv has been banned from joining a gay pride march in Madrid because authorities in the Israeli city have not condemned the recent attack on the Gaza flotilla.
"After what has happened, and as human rights campaigners, it seemed barbaric to us to have them taking part," explained Antonio Poveda, of Spain's Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transexuals and Bisexuals. "We don't just defend out [sic] own little patch."
The reaction of the Israeli group is vehement:
The Tel Aviv group have reacted angrily to the decision, claiming that the Madrid activists were getting their priorities wrong by mixing the nine flotilla deaths with gay pride.
"I cannot recall anyone asking the Tel Aviv city hall to either support or condemn in this case. That is not their job. I also don't recall Madrid's gay organisations condemning any of the Palestinian terrorist attacks on cafes or buses," Eytan Schwartz, a spokesman for the city told Spain's El Mundo newspaper.
"Don't they know that Islamist fundamentalists don't just want to finish off Israel, but that they also believe homosexuals should 'cure themselves' or die?"
"It is shameful that they should join with pro-Palestinian and fundamentalist groups which are not exactly tolerant with homosexuality," he said.
And a spokesperson for the Israeli group claims:
"Why do they mix politics with a gay pride procession? We were invited as an apolitical association and we do not represent the government," Mike Hamel, one of the Israeli invitees, said.
The Guardian does not challenge this claim, but it appears to be false. The Israeli group is sponsored both by Tel Aviv municipality and the Israeli foreign ministry, headed by racist Avigdor Lieberman. In its own report on the matter on 8 June, Ynet revealed that the Israeli pride contingent is in fact directly government-sponsored:
Organizers of Madrid's pride parade, scheduled for the beginning of next month, have announced that they are cancelling the invitation of Israeli representatives slated to appear there, Ynet learned Monday.
The Israeli delegation, made up of members of the LGBT association and the Foreign Ministry, was scheduled to run an Israeli "bus" in the parade, for the first time since its establishment.
Another Ynet article from earlier this year lays out that official sponsorship of Israeli gay groups' participation in pride parades around Europe is part of a deliberate hasbara strategy to whitewash -- or gaywash -- Israel's image:
The Tel Aviv Municipality together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the gay center are working on a plan to purchase a bus which will shuttle between gay festivals in Europe and promote Israel's international image.
According to the plan, the bus will transport Israeli dancers, play Israeli music and serve as a marketing platform for Israel and the branding of Tel Aviv as its national gay city. Festival goers will be offered Israeli food and will get a chance to watch Israeli films on board the vehicle. [...]
Since the project is estimated to cost several hundred thousand dollars, the municipality has turned to the Foreign Ministry for funding support.
The use of gaywashing to try to make Israel appeal to Western liberal audiences and cover up war crimes in Gaza, including the war crime of collective punishment, and elsewhere has become part of the official campaign to rebrand Israel. It involves a specifically civilizational discourse contrasting a supposedly open, tolerant Israel with what is portrayed as a barbaric Palestinian, Muslim society that essentially deserves whatever it gets. Indeed Tel Aviv municipality spokesperson Eytan Schwartz explains to The Guardian how the propaganda strategy works:
Schwartz said that Tel Aviv had also extended an invitation to Madrid to send a gay delegation to the city.
Among other things, Tel Aviv had planned to take the Spanish organisers of the march to Gaza so they could witness a place "that is controlled by the fundamentalists of Hamas, who do not respect any human rights and believe that homosexuals should be killed," Schwartz said.
It's hard to imagine how such a propaganda tour to gawk at and mock imprisoned refugees for their "inferior" values could even be contemplated let alone actually pulled off. Nevertheless, the idea appears to be that gay people are supposed to come away feeling great that men can kiss on beaches in Tel Aviv, while 1.5 million "intolerant" people in Gaza are incarcerated, frequently bombed, deliberately deprived of basic necessities leading to growing child malnutrition and widespread food insecurity, and are blocked from entering or leaving what amounts to a giant concentration camp.
Its also notable that at least in the media coverage it is only Israeli gay men who are heard speaking. Where are the women and transgender people and what do they think?
Israeli government-sponsored cultural delegations of any sort are completely boycottable according to the Palestinian BDS campaign.
The idea that Israel's mainstream government-sponsored gay movement represents any sort of progressive element is further exposed by the fact that Tzipi Livni, former foreign minister, who bears direct personal responsibility for Israel's war crimes in Gaza spoke at Tel Aviv's official pride parade to a rapturous welcome.
Meanwhile in Toronto, the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid has been banned from using its name if it wishes to participate in Toronto's official gay pride parade, leading many past and present honorees to withdraw their support of the parade in protest at this censorship.