Seattle's gay mayor rejects calls to boycott Israel, listens to LGBT Palestinian students
Rejecting calls to cancel visit, Ed Murray participated in Tel Aviv's Gay Pride Parade; 'I encourage any country that supports LGBT people,' he tells Haaretz.
Despite vocal efforts by supporters of the movement to boycott Israel, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray joined tens of thousands of people in Tel Aviv's annual Gay Pride Parade on Friday.
Murray, 60, is openly gay and has spent the past two weeks in Israel with his spouse, Michael Shiosaki. He also participated in an international conference organized by the local LGBT community and met with senior Israeli and Palestinian officials.
In an interview with Haaretz, Murray expressed his objection to the boycott movement, saying it would not lead to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He further rejected claims Israel is "pinkwashing" the oppression of the Palestinians and occupation by touting the rights enjoyed by homosexuals in Israel.
"The boycott movement is made up of various people in the United States. A whole bunch of young people who just really care about justice, and others who I'm not sure what their motivation is. I worry that they're not just anti-Israel but maybe more," Murray said. "There were letters that were written to me by very mainstream people, who I know support the State of Israel, but believe that there should be a boycott. There were protests downtown and at my office. I believe that the situation is very complex. It's one that I wanted to understand. I wish that people who are boycotting would actually come here, go to the West Bank like I went to the West Bank, talk to people here in Israel as well."
This is Murray's first visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and according to the mayor, he never had any intention of canceling his visit.
"We initially made the decision almost a year ago to accept this invitation, to speak at the pride conference. Any country that is supportive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is a country I want to keep encouraging them to do that. The battle in Israel is not over for LGBT people, and anything I can do to encourage that, I'm going to do it."
Murray says he rejects any form of boycott against Israel: "Given the complexity of the situation, from the Palestinian side and the Israeli side, I don't think that boycott is going to move the situation forward. We're dealing with a very different reality than we know in the United States, a very different reality than other parts of the world. I think we should continue to put pressure on Israel, to come to some sort of agreement with the Palestinians, but I don't think a boycott is going to get us there. If anything, I would invite Americans to come here, spend time with Israelis, spend time with Palestinians.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.660989
= new reply since forum marked as read
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BTW your mayor is also Richard Silverstein's ......from his blog :
The following is an op-ed written by Yediot Achronot reporter, Shai Zamir. To my knowledge, it has not appeared in the paper’s online edition, nor in the Ynet English edition. It’s important enough to the debate raging about pinkwashing that I wanted it to be accessible to English readers. It’s a critique of gay pride Israel-style as a facade behind which Israeli racism and intolerance flourish:........
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/06/14/israeli-pride-as-pinkwashing/
Really ?
http://ukmediawatch.org/2014/02/22/richard-silverstein-accuses-african-american-zionist-of-being-a-negro-uncle-tom/
that's fine too, but here are 2 examples of meaning that most people know
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=106258
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=106255
and besides this earth shattering debate is serving to keep your thread kicked right 
well except what PEP actually means that is 
oh I saw your posts about an alert, you seemed to point a finger but who at, can you be very clear on that? Now don't be shy and see I kicked your thread for again
In these movements, the struggle for justice in Palestine was practically synonymous with progressive-left ideology. Despite almost universal left-wing convention, the idea of being progressive or socialist in Israel didn’t always encompass the plight of the Palestinians.
I later encountered another way of looking at the same phenomenon from another perspective: Progressive Except on Palestine (PEP).
PEP is typically attributed to those who share broad leftist values – such as equality, justice and fairness across a host of common issues – yet, for one reason or another, these values are unable to find expression in terms of justice for the Palestinians.
The whole thing seemed irrational to me, no matter how I looked at it.
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-progressives-except-on-palestine-phenomenon,6365
