To be Washed Pink with Palestine’s Water

One of the greatest evils of white supremacy is its ability to fracture and separate marginalized people from their community, pit marginalized communities against each other, and separate people from their land in order to maintain privilege and power.  It is clear that in Israel we see all three of these things occurring.  What this piece will focus on is the ways that Israel’s policies are, like whiteness itself, both particular and universal.  It is particular in the ways it brands itself as “gay friendly” through pinkwashing and universal because it does so while simultaneously normalizing the experiences and identities of the Palestinian people under occupation.

Pinkwashed
When we talk about queer people as they function as a tool for Israel’s propaganda we must first and foremost acknowledge that not all LGBTQ people are being used. This is not because they are somehow able to escape the objectification, but rather because there are not deemed to have worth in the context of western hegemony.  We must recognize the ways a racial hierarchy is perpetuated in Israel’s pinkwashing as well as the existence of queer Palestinians in occupied Palestine.  Their history of being targeted for violence and oppression because they are Palestinian occurs simultaneously with their experiences of being the target of policies that attempt to separate them from the Palestinian community as a whole as a means of further vilifying, othering, oppressing, and criminalizing Palestinians and Palestinian culture.  Queer Palestinians have long been the targets of the Israeli Government’s tactics to infiltrate Palestinian spaces as a means to divide and conquer.  In First Intifada Israel pushed the notion of being queer as unacceptable in an attempt to portray queer Palestinians as collaborators with the Israeli government.  Pinkwashing ultimately uses policies, such as inclusion in the military industrial complex and the marriage industrial complex, to give Israel the appearance of being a good accepting liberal state.  Our first task in deconstructing pinkwashing is to put it in context.  Even if we are to accept inclusion in the military and same sex marriage as progressive policies (I don’t, but will get to that later) that does not mean we stop looking at the other policies of the state.

When evoking the term pinkwashing, which is the “deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life”, we must ask ourselves how is pinkwashing possible?  Whose water is being used to wash the state of Israel pink?  This may seem to be just a witty play on words but in a very literal sense the reason Israel is able to exist as it does and promote itself to tourists is because of water.  The reason it is able to maintain the standard of living, despite a growing population and increasing infrastructural needs, for both its citizens and those living in the illegal settlements is because of its theft of Palestinian water.  It is this theft of water that enables Israel to attempt to market itself as a unique westernized country, without adequate water it would be impossible to present itself as a state with all the modern amenities expected by western tourists.  The foundation of pinkwashing lies in Israel’s attempts to appear modern, accepting, and liberal to queer people of western countries, especially the United States.

The Right to Water
While the theft of water is not the only violation of human rights committed by Israel against Palestine and its people, it is the one I wish to turn our attention right now.  If queer people and their human rights are treated as particularly special and singled out by the Israeli government then water rights are the opposite.  The water policy of Israel treats all Israeli citizens and settlers in the illegal settlements as one block of people and those living in occupied Palestine, regardless of sexual orientation or gender, entirely the same.  This is worth noting because queer internationals are welcomed with open arms in Israel, however there is a total disregard for one of the most basic human rights  -water- for those living in occupied Palestine.  A gay couple from the United States is encouraged to come to Tel Aviv and they would no doubt have running water in their hotel, but the experience of a gay couple living in occupied Palestine is starkly different.

Across the West Bank there is irregular water supply, particularly in the water-scarce summer months, as well as depleted/contaminated/salinated water in Gaza because of over-extraction of the Coastal Aquifer – due in part to the fact that Palestinians are not allowed to develop or repair water infrastructure.  In the West Bank there is no piped water at all for 215,00 Palestinians in 150 villages (26% of West Bank households) while half a million people in Gaza are not connected to a sewage system.  Recent studies have stated that the aquifer that supplies water to Gaza is 90% undrinkable without treatment and would be completely undrinkable by 2016. This all stands in start contrast to the continuous drinkable water at subsidized prices that exist in Israel.  (This data and statistics were taken from Palestine Right to Water Fact sheet and OTP: Gaza’s water could be undrinkable by 2016)

It is crucial to also understand that the situation in occupied Palestine is not on accident, a coincidence, or a mistake – it is due to the Israeli government implementing policies, made possible through occupation and state violence, that enables Israel to use more water than it has or more water than is possible to maintain long term, which leads to water theft.

(Graphs taken from the Fact sheet)

In part this situation occurred because of Israel’s desire for “security”, even at the expense of Palestinians.  Since the Second Intifada, infrastructure has been destroyed and people have been separated from their water sources due to the construction of the separation wall.  This need for security brings us back to pinkwashing.  Israel spends large amounts of money to promote its policy of military inclusion for queer people, but what does this military inclusion mean?  It means that queer people are being integrated into a system of violence and oppression that creates the horrible living conditions for those living in occupied Palestine.  Israel prides itself on including queer people in a system that kills and demoralizes people through checkpoints and walls, and it is these walls and checkpoints that prevent people from accessing water on their own land.

Those of us in the United States are told by a massive Israeli PR campaign  that we were behind the times because queer people could not serve in the military but I would ask: why would queer people want to?  Why would we want anyone to join a system that kills, separates, demoralizes, and disenfranchises people?  The state of Israel is attempting to simultaneously sell us the idea that joining the military system and perpetuating violence is something queer people should be a part of while that system actively violates all Palestinians’ rights, including queer Palestinians, to the most basic need, water.   Dividing the queer community from Palestinians, queer Palestinians from straight Palestinians, and all Palestinians from the land and water of Palestine is a tested strategy of oppressive and occupying forces and similar tactics are seen throughout history.  To build and sustain a country on the theft of water, leading to queer people dying of disease, dehydration, and economic violence, and then promote that country as a bastion of queer equality is to give some queer people flowers while stringing up and stoning others.

Letter to Robbie Rogers

Dear Robbie,

Congratulations.  It was a long time before someone told me congratulations for “coming out” to them and I felt like it was a response that was so validating and needed, I hope it might carry a similar feeling for you.  Thank you.  What you have done means the world to many queer youth and your presence in their lives could help them in ways no one else can.

I jumped the gun a little, my name is Brady and like you I am queer, white, in my 20s, and soccer was a major part of growing up.  While our current situations are drastically different (although I have been to a Galaxy game or two), our similarities make me feel compelled to write this.  First and foremost I write this letter from a place of love, for you as a queer sibling, for our community that stands at a crossroad, and for our younger selves who deserved to be happy.  This letter is no way  all encompassing and will hopefully be the start to a conversation, whether that be between us, members of our community, or just an internal one for a young boy in southern California trying to ease his stomach a little.

I must give fair warning however, because while this letter is written with love it is not solely concerning love.  I am writing you primarily to bring attention the crimes against our community and the crossroads on which we, as white queer men independent of and flag bearers for our community, have reached.

The crimes in which I speak manifest themselves as violence and marriage and the crossroad we must navigate is our future place in our community, because while we may be queer, we have been endowed with unearned privileges.  We are in a precarious position because we can hide in plain sight, even out, proud, and covered in rainbows and glitter.  We can do so because we appear pretty, acceptable, respectable, and in many ways we are immune to the violence that plagues the rest of our queer community (examples here, here, here, and here).  This violence is nothing new and the reason the queer movement exists is because folks decided enough was enough and fought back, literally.  I am telling you this because you have the ability to bring attention to these issues.  You have the ability to ask why this is allowed to happen.  Why are some of us praised and idolized while others are being attacked and killed?  We, white queer men, are the current flag bearers of a movement we did not start; we are the face of the national ad campaigns, the ones on successful TV shows, and we have the most to gain from popular issues such as marriage.  The movement has been revolving around us since the day it was taken from the trans* folks of color who started and led the Stonewall riots.  I think it is time to change that and put the focus on those who are the most in need and have been the target of the most hate.  It is time we stopped charging forward towards a flawed idea of equality and come together with those we have left behind, as a whole community, to chart a new future.

Marriage is more complicated and not thought of as a crime because in many ways we have brought it upon ourselves.  I follow your twitter and am aware that to some degree you celebrated the decisions on DOMA and Prop 8.  I am not a legal scholar but I do not believe marriage is solely a legal matter.  There has been a huge amount of work done giving different perspectives on gay marriage (here, here, here, here, here, and here are a few), but what I want to focus on is our understanding of equality and equity.  An analogy that I like to use is that equality means everyone has a pair of shoes while equity means  everyone has a pair of shoes that fits.  Gay men who look just like us, carrying blue flags with yellow equal signs, have been pushing for what they believe to be equality and our community is crumbling because of it.

You are not currently married and because of that you do not have access to the 1,500-1,700 rights and privileges that married couples have.  If we want equality for all then why are we focusing on expanding marriage to LGBTQ folks instead of working to expand all those rights and privileges to everyone, regardless if they chose to marry or not.  Equality under the law should mean total equality, not just equality once you get married.  If we are striving for equal treatment then we should look beyond ourselves to folks like the single moms out there trying their best to raise their kids or those in a relationship who don’t want or need their love approved or validated by a piece of paper from the government.

Next, how is marriage equitable?  How does marriage and the benefits that come with it help queer people of color who aren’t able to get a job, be safe from violence, or know they won’t be evicted because of how they identify?  How does marriage help trans*, gender nonconforming, and gender queer people when it actively pushes them into confining themselves yet again?  What about the polyamorous folks out there who have found more than one person they want to spend their life with?  Again I raise the flag bearer status we possess.  Whose flag are we holding?  Is it just blue and yellow or is it a rainbow?  Are we here to help our community so that all of us feel safe, loved, and supported or is our primary concern the wants of the pretty, acceptable, and respectable?

I am writing to you because despite not knowing you, I love you.  I watched you play soccer and silently prayed you would do well.  I read your letter to your younger self and almost cried.  We were in high school at the same time, in different places, and dealing with the same fear.  I am writing you because our actions moving forward must be rooted in love for our entire community not only those who look and love like us.  I am asking you to consider whose flag you chose to bear; there are young queer and trans* folks of color out there being killed and killing themselves because they did what we thought we couldn’t or because that cramp in their stomach hurt too much.  Our community, our entire community, deserves life, equity, justice, and happiness.  I hope you join with those of us who are striving to make those things a reality.

Much love,
Brady