Taking Pride on an Anti-Israel Journey of Rejection
"The focus today is to show our love, to show our solidarity and our support to a community that needs it. The message here is that everybody is welcome, everybody is included and there's so much that we can learn from each other.""For the youth to see so many groups, so may organizations and so many people being here to support this community, it gives that sense of validation that is so important -- to make people feel they are welcome and validated.""This community is all about love, solidarity and support."Mr. Capital Pride 2024"All of the organizations and institutions that have pulled out have done so without consultation with their workers.""This was top bosses and employers or boards of directors making decisions without consulting the people who work there or the people they actually serve."Emily Quaile, Community Solidarity Ottawa
Capital Pride Parade in Ottawa, on Sunday, August 25, 2024. (Chris Tanouye/THE CANADIAN PRESS) |
Inclusion,
love, solidarity and support? Not quite. As it happens Capital Pride
organizers conferred among themselves -- without taking a poll among
their members, in fact -- to reach a consensus of opinion that inclusion
would mean the Palestinian community of the Ottawa region, not merely
those who qualify as 2SLGBTQIA+, but they and their sympathizers in
general. The very groups that have celebrated the October 7 Palestinian
terrorism butchery in Israel where 1,200 mostly civilians were left
dead, girls and women raped and tortured, entire families put to the
torch, children, women and the elderly taken hostage into Gaza.
Gaza,
the stronghold of the Hamas terrorist organization; considered by the
government of Canada to be terrorists just as they are in most Western
countries, for their unabashed and straightforward dedication to the
destruction of the world's only Jewish state, in an ancestral geography,
an Israel reborn for the singular purpose of offering safe haven to
Jews in a hostile world that continually reverts to a state of viral
antisemitism, just as we now see in Europe, North America and elsewhere,
boosted by the slanderous propaganda of the Palestinian agenda to
discredit and demonize Israel and Jews everywhere.
Palestinian
organizations and sympathetic groups have organized raucous,
threatening rallies in cities across Europe and North America from
October 8 onward, funded by foreign organizations and Islamist countries
like Qatar and Iran who have also supplied organizers for these
pro-Hamas protests as well as the encampments on university grounds
demanding that university administrators and corporations and business
leaders as well as Western governments condemn Israel for its response
to the mass rape, mutilations and bloodletting by Hamas when the Israeli
military embarked on a campaign to destroy the terrorist infrastructure
of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, the PLFP and Hezbollah.
The
declaration of 'principles' and alliances expressed by Capital Pride
prior to embarkation on its annual Capital Pride parade effectively
raised the level of antisemitism in and among the LGBTQ community in
favour of supporting a death cult that aims its poisoned arrows at Jews
everywhere, extending its campaign in less visible but rising campaign
against Western 'imperialism' inimical to Palestinian aspirations and
extended Islamist jihadist goals.
"Part of the growing Islamophobic sentiment we are witnessing is fuelled by the pink-washing of the war in Gaza and racist notions that all Palestinians are homophobic and transphobic. By portraying itself as a protector of the rights of queer and trans people in the Middle East, Israel seeks to draw attention away from its abhorrent human rights abuses against Palestinians. We refuse to be complicit in this violence. Indeed, to withhold our solidarity from Palestinians in the name of upholding 2SLGBTQIA+ rights betrays the promise of liberation that guides our work. We join our voice to the calls for greater protection of civilians and reject any attempts to use a devastating conflict as a pretext to advance hate.""To breathe life into our sincere hope for an end to this war and justice for all its victims, we commit to the following actions:Capital Pride Statement in Solidarity with Palestine, August 8, 2024, Ottawa, Ontario
- Integrating resources such as the Palestinian BDS National Committee’s boycott list in our existing review process of current and future sponsorship agreements;
- Hosting Zaffa: A Queer Arab Showcase, a Signature Event as part of the 2024 Capital Pride Festival that features discussions about ongoing issues facing LGBTQIA+ Arabs locally and abroad;
- Recognizing the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in opening remarks at 2024 Capital Pride Festival Signature Events; and
- Working with all our partners, both public and private, to push for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages, increased access to humanitarian aid, and more accessible pathways for refugees."
Replete
with the slanderous calculated falsehoods of the Palestinian
propaganda, the Capital Pride Statement is a document of ignorance and
antisemitism combined in a lethal cauldron of pure hate. Israel is a
defender of alternate gender human rights which are legally protected in
Israel; its Pride Parades are open and respectful. Whereas on the other
hand, in the Palestinian Territories gays risk their very lives if
their sexual orientation becomes public knowledge. In the West Bank and
the Gaza Strip, as in Iran, death stalks members of the Palestinian
LGBTQ community.
There
is no 'genocide' against Palestinians at the hands of Israel; there IS a
military campaign to expunge the presence of lethal Islamist
Palestinian attackers of Jews/Israelis from the territories. The
founding charters of Fatah, Hamas and other such internationally
recognized terrorist groups identify their purpose as the elimination of
Israel from its ancestral soil. Deadly attacks against Jews have been
the Palestinian formula since 1948 with the declaration of the State of
Israel. Existential threats against Israel and world Jewry emanate from
the Palestinians whom LGBTQ groups lionize.
In
Ottawa, reaction to the Capital Pride position statement was clear and
it was a denunciation of all that it alleges in demonizing Israel while
supporting Palestinian terrorism against Israel. The city's mayor began
the response of rejecting the Pride position when the City of Ottawa's
Mayor Mark Sutcliffe let it be known with regret, that he would not be
attending the parade. Followed by the Liberal Party of Canada, the
Ontario Liberal Party the Jewish Federation of Ottawa, the Children's
Hospital of Eastern Ontario, The Ottawa Hospital, the Montfort Hospital,
Ottawa Tourism, the Bank of Canada, Giant Tiger, Loblaw, the Liquor
Control Board of Ontario, the University of Ottawa, the U.S. Embassy,
the Public Service Pride Network, Conseil des ecoles publiques de l'Est
de l'Ontario, Conseil des ecoles catholiques du centre-Est, and the
Ottawa-Carleton District School Board.
They
did so in sympathy and agreement with the Ottawa Jewish community which
felt excluded and isolated as a result of the Capital Pride statement
and position taken on the Israel-Gaza conflict, repeating the slanderous
accusation of Israel committing 'genocide' against the Palestinians.
Ottawa's situation is not a unique one, as it happens, since Pride
parades in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax and Vancouver have been disrupted
by pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Hate-mongering against Jews resulted
in over 100 synagogues, hospitals and Jewish community centres receiving
bomb threats.
As
for the Pride commitment to integrate the BDS boycott list into its
review of sponsorship agreements, that remains to be seen. The TD Bank
is Pride's major 'presenting' sponsor and right behind it as a sponsor
is Loblaws, and the LCBO followed by the province of Ontario, all of
which are listed on the BDS Coalition's "Boycott List of Shame". Shame,
in very point of fact, has settled itself squarely on the Pride
community for its unabashed antisemitism cloaked unbecomingly under the
banner of anti-Zionism, anti-Israel provocations.
Members of the OCDSB carry a giant pride flag during the Capital Pride Parade in Ottawa, on Sunday, August 25, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Tanouye |
Labels: Annual Pride Parade, Antisemitism, Boycott/Divestment/Sanction, Capital Pride, Hypocrisy, Pro-Palestinian Terrorism
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home