PLO silent on gay rights
The Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) ambassador to the United States has refused to say whether gay rights would be protected in an independent Palestinian state.
“Of course we’re going to have a secular state,” PLO spokesman Maen Areikat told a reporter. “We’re not going to have it based on religion.”
But when asked if homosexuals would be tolerated he said the issue was “beyond my [authority]”.
Areikat also said religious minorities would be tolerated but in another recent interview said that any Jews within the borders of a Palestinian state would have to leave.
RE: “PLO silent on gay rights”
ARTICLE: “Israel’s Treatment of Gay Palestinian Asylum Seekers” ~ by Caroline Esser, The Washington Note, 6/06/11(excerpts)…The newest way to sell Israel to Americans: LGBT rights. Search gay rights on the Anti-Defamation League’s website and what do you find? A ready-to-print and available for order poster that reads, “Which of the Middle East nations protects the legal rights, safety & freedom of the LGBT communities? Only Israel….
…In their 2008 study, “Nowhere to Run: Gay Palestinian Asylum-Seekers in Israel,” Michael Kagan and Anat Ben-Dor describe in detail Israel’s unsympathetic and unbending policy towards gay Palestinians…
…In pursuit of protection and the ability to openly express their sexuality, there have been at least ten cases in which gay Palestinians have sought refuge in Israel. However, despite their desperation, Israel refuses to even review gay Palestinian applications for asylum (those who have successfully received asylum have had to submit their cases directly to the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva). Moreover, gay Palestinians who have illegally entered Israel have been arrested and promptly deported–returned to the very environments in which their lives were at risk and in which they will now face further danger as they are questioned not only for their sexuality but for their choice to spend time in Israel…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2011/06/israels_treatme/
I agree with you about Hamas and few other extremist religious people like Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem think homosexual is bad, but not all Palestinians support that. There are so many propaganda out there in the medias that portrayed Palestinians as evils, terrorists and killers. If you meet them you’ll be surprised because majority of Palestinians are very educated, secular and not even religious or think homosexual is a sin. It’ll surprise you then, to learn that homosexuality has been legal in the West Bank for longer than it’s been legal in Israel. Some have fled to Israel. The reality is most have not.
NOTICE… Why this article shows an Israeli flag? Lame
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To FA:
Green parliamnetarians have publicly disowned the protest against a Jewish-owned chocolate shop in Newtown…go and protest outside the Israeli Consul, or a business supplying military hardware to the Israeli army.
(You claim to be a thinking person…think about how badly this protest has gone off the rails!)
to Ben: Max Brenner is proudly supporting the Israeli army and the atrocities it carries out on the Palestinian people… THINKING PEOPLE OF NEWTOWN should be disgusted that they have a business in their hood which supports ISRAELI APARTHEID
Dear ED
Please don’t challenge me, I was simply making the point that any issue relating to Arab queers here or overseas does not make it into our media, MUCH. In fact it seems to me that on the rare occasion Arabs get a mention in our media it is usually negative and in this case pure Israely propaganda.
As for Jack, wake up and smell the roses honey, everything we do is political. The fact that we have our own Gay press is a political act. Duuahhh
One would hope that after the persecution that the Palestinians have suffered, that tolerance would be the order of the day in any Palestinian state. They would certainly garner more support from liberal sympathizers elsewhere in the world if they were to do so.
Having lived in the Arab world, (Dubai and Qatar), for 11 years, I know that at best there is a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude which can prevail. I developed a great liking for Arabs and Arabic culture.
However, having said that, my partner was effectively arrested and detained for 6 days, before being deported from Qatar, when a blood test revealed he was HIV positive. He was deported in the clothes he was arrested in, minus his underwear, which he had had to use as a towel.
Appalling. If Palestine is, indeed, going to be granted a place on the global stage, perhaps pressure could be brought to bear, to encourage greater tolerance and acceptance, and less barbaric practices which occur elsewhere in the Arabic world.
Editor – probably best NOT to use the Israeli flag for this story.
But it’s important gays and lesbians know where various “liberation” causes stand on our freedoms, be it the PLO, the Dalai Lama/Tibet or the recent uprisings in Egypt, a place notorious in recent years for cracking down on queers.
Praise Israel!!! The only democracy in the Middle East that protects LGBT Rights!! And which has not one, but two GAY PRIDE PARADES.
Shalom :)
The Arabic world on the other hand…are no friend of the LGBT Community.
Sad…but true.
Oh grow up you lot – its a media report not a piece of comment.
Take your political beefs elsewhere – this is not the place for them.
lets damn the Palestinians to eternal misery just because their representative can’t tell us if Gay rights will be protected…
considering how little is written or discussed in SSO about the plight of Arab gays either in Palestine or Israel or even here in Australia, this article is nothing but pure Zionist propaganda, yukkk
Ed: We at the Star Observer are always very interested in printing stories about the lives and experiences of LGBTIs in the Arab world. I challenge you to name an LGBTI publication in Australia that provides more coverage of those issues than we do.
It’s not ‘Zionist propaganda’ to report that the PLO is not committing to protecting gay rights.
Pinkwashing at it’s best. SSO – you could at least use the Palestinian flag to hide this Zionist propaganda.
Palestinians are fighting for their fundamental human rights, and statehood at the UN, yet clearly the Zionist lobby have managed to pink wash using you effectively.
Th mob that blockaded the (jewish-owned) Max Brenner hot chocolate shop in Newtown should be reminded of this.
It looks like the PLO is opening itself up to Zionist attacks. Making itself a sitting duck, in fact. This sort of bigotry fatally weakens the Palestinian cause and hardly bodes well for gay Palestinians.