Get Engaged This Pride Month
As a member of the board of the Jewish Film Institute (JFI), I know firsthand how art can be extraordinarily political. Freedom of expression is paramount in any flourishing democracy. This ethos promotes collaboration and mutual understanding, and is anathema to the tactics of anti-normalization that prevent people from humanizing one another. In this spirit, I’ve been deeply dismayed by the news that organizers of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement have successfully pressured filmmakers to cancel trips to TLVFest: The Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival. According to a report in Haaretz:
Pinkwatching Israel, which is an arm of the BDS movement, wants to promote a cultural boycott of Israel because of so-called “pinkwashing” — displaying openness toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community for the purpose of concealing more serious injustices. There are several posts on the movement’s Facebook page calling on guests to refrain from attending the festival, with the claim that their participation contributes to a continued normalization of Israel and the occupation.
TLVFest celebrates LGBT content from all over the world. However, BDS activists claim that it is promoting Pinkwashing,” insinuating that recognizing the accomplishments of LGBT Israelis and their hard-fought rights is just a tool to cover up the military occupation of the West Bank. While not the first time the festival has confronted politically motivated cancellations, this is the first year that cancellations have caused significant harm.
Anti-normalization does more harm than good
Sadly, I’ve heard this story before. Frameline, which is San Francisco’s international LGBT film festival, has faced harassment and increased security costs for years because it accepts Israeli films and partners with the local Israeli consulate general. Considered to be the “crème de la crème” of LGBT film festivals, Frameline has played a groundbreaking role in ushering in an unparalleled era of LGBT content. LGBT people like me owe Frameline nothing but gratitude for its historic impact on our daily lives. That anyone would — even indirectly — accuse it of pinkwashing is astounding to me.
At JFI we have openly-LGBT leadership and have shown countless LGBT films from around the world. JFI co-owns the Ninth Street Independent Film Center with Frameline and the Center for Asian American Media. These three organizations partner together to learn from one another and, by providing subsidized creative spaces, are on the front lines assisting filmmakers who would otherwise be priced out of San Francisco. They even share a screening room to help foster greater creativity and community for all.
The media, cultural and political landscape is a world apart from when I came out in 2003. Film has an enormous impact on the fight for LGBT equality. The content at a film festival is often a precursor for what can become mainstream. Without organizations like Frameline, there might not have been Transparent and Orange is the New Black, or film adaptations of Rent, Brokeback Mountain, Angels in America and so many others. Each openly-LGBT character, along with new generations of filmmakers fighting to push the needle, begets new on-screen presentations of the LGBT experience. I firmly believe that if film can help humanize LGBT people, the same can be said for many others around the globe.
Pinkwashing can be real, but…
As someone who has challenged actual pinkwashing in Israel itself, I find the accusations pointed at these film festivals to be utterly baseless and hateful.
On June 10, 2015, I was fortunate to attend Israel’s first-ever hearing in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) on transgender inclusivity with A Wider Bridge and found it extraordinarily moving. Representatives from every secular party — from the right-wing Likud to the nominally-communist Hadash — were represented in a clear majority of the Knesset’s parties both inside and out of the current ruling government coalition. The culmination of widespread awareness efforts by Israel’s LGBT civil society, the hearing featured live testimonies from transgender youth and video presentations. At the end of the hearing, there was not a single eye dry in the room. However, within days, the ruling coalition shot down multiple pro-LGBT bills offered by the Opposition and failed to introduce any alternatives under their own name.
Last year, on a trip to Israel and Palestine, I attended a meeting with Dr. Michael Oren, a highly respected history professor who moved to Israel from America in 1979 and went on to become the ambassador to the U.S. before serving in his current role as a Member of the Knesset in the center-right Kulanu Party. MK Oren brought up the transgender inclusivity hearing that both of us attended, but neglected to mention that his own party was preventing LGBT advancement. Instead he went into a soliloquy on how a short drive in virtually any direction finds Arab societies where LGBT people are maligned and murdered by the likes of Hamas, ISIS and others — and did not hold Israel to the Western European and North American standard he had on matters like medicine, technology, and even integration of women in the military. While MK Oren’s points about Israel’s neighbors are true, his avoidance of discussing the actions of his own party made his statement an act of pinkwashing. Without missing a beat I raised my hand. It was important to me that the American audience understood the facts.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has given some individuals and groups the opportunity to foment the belief that any progress for LGBT people is made exclusively as a smokescreen by Israel. When the LGBT community — or any community, for that matter — engages in anti-normalization it cuts us off from one another and from progress on all sides.
Engage, Not Boycott, LGBT Israelis
One of the things that makes me most proud about Israel’s LGBT community is the role it plays in trying to resolve the conflict with Palestine. It’s no mistake that the Israelis at the helm of some of the most prominent peace-seeking NGOs — Peace Now, New Israel Fund, Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem — are openly gay. The desire to uplift the ‘other’ is the same and, if anything, we in the American LGBT community need to embrace Israeli LGBT people, not malign them.
But don’t just take it from me. My LGBT friends and allies alike should read the powerful words of Hen Mazzig, an Israeli LGBT activist of African and Iraqi descent who worked as a humanitarian officer in the IDF and who supports a two-state solution. Oakland family law attorney Frederick Hertz, who has spent years working to support LGBT people throughout the Middle East, offers provoking thoughts in his latest piece, “Pinkwashing: Is it really so black and white?”
As we celebrate Pride Month, let’s get engaged. Let’s get uncomfortable. Let’s expand our hearts and minds in ways that humanize each other, not build more walls and boycotts that cut us off from one another. Let’s use art in all of its forms to learn new perspectives and inspire us to take action for a more inclusive and equitable world.
Join me at Frameline41 from June 15–25 and JFI’s SF Jewish Film Festival 37 June 20-August 6!
