Should gays boycott Israel?

July 12, 12:48 AMSF Gay Travel ExaminerEd Walsh

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Ayala Shani outside Tel Avis's LGBT center. Photo: Ed Walsh

Despite Israel’s strong record on gay rights, should LGBT tourists boycott Israel?

Pro-Palestinian Israeli activist Ayala Shani thinks they should.  Shani is a transgender woman of Jewish origin.

Click here for her Op-Ed piece in the Bay Area Reporter in which she gives her reason for urging gays to stay away from Israel.

What do you think?   E-mail Ed Walsh at edwalsh94105@yahoo.com with your opinion for publication in future columns.

Shani is critical of an article this reporter wrote in the Bay Area Reporter.     She was also critical of an article in the B. A. R. by Heather Cassell.   Click here to read Cassell’s article.  Click here to read Walsh’s article.

Shani sent the links below in support her contention that the pro-Israel nonprofit, StandWithUs, is using LGBT issues to promote what she says is “propaganda” for Israel.

Below is her e-mail with the links published here with her permission.   Among other things, she contends that StandWithUs is “collaborating” with people who are antigay.

Here’s what Shani wrote:

Exploiting LGBT issues is mentioned
 explicitly as one of their strategies (right before showing
 Israel as tiny in a map):
 http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=610&PID=0&IID=2630&TTL=StandWithUs:_A_Grassroots_Advocacy_Organization_Also_On_Campus

 
 Roz Rothstein - director - with gay haters
John Hagee (organizer) and Gary Bauer
 http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mccain%E2%80%99s-surrogates-still-love-hagee
>
> 
SWU sudden interest in LGBT issues in Israel:
 http://www.standwithus.com/pdfs/flyers/whydoesIsrael.pdf
> 
 mixing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism and again,
 collaborating with Dennis Prager, another gay hater
>
> http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=3&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=610&PID=0&IID=2630&TTL=StandWithUs:_A_Grassroots_Advocacy_Organization_Also_On_Campus
>
> 
> denying apartheid and the "pluralism" argument
> they are counting on:
> http://blog.americancongressfortruth.com/2008/12/24/why-israel-is-not-an-apartheid-state/
>
> "Israelis are a vibrant multiracial, multi-ethnic mix
> of people from all over the world, and the 20 percent
> non-Jewish minority enjoys the same freedoms and
> protections. Gays, Christians, Congolese and Sudanese
> fleeing from persecution have received refuge in
> Israel."
>
> 
> persecuting lecturers:
> 
> - William I. Robinson
> http://www.standwithus.org/app/iNews/view_printer.asp?ID=1021
> http://www.petitiononline.com/cdafsb/petition.html
>
> 
> - Jim Holstun:
> http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/lessons_of_frank_ellis.html
> http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9646.shtml
>
> 
> - Wadie Said (Edward Said's son)
> http://www.adc.org/PDF/hcr07.pdf
> 
> -  Joel Kovel:
> http://www.standwithus.com/michigan/swu-mi-081407.asp#column
>
> http://buffaloreport.com/2007/071011.zinn.letter.html
> http://english.sxu.edu/sites/kirstein/archives/2019
>
> 
> some racists posters:
> http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6947.shtml
> http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3400283,00.html
>
> http://standwithuscampus.com/flyers/summercamp.pdf
> 
>
> 
> 
>