Rabble Article: Jewish Lesbian Activist Jennifer Peto Slams Israel For Their Homophobia & Racism!!!!
Coming out against Israeli apartheid: The case for solidarity
| March 11, 2010
Each year, in the lead up to Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), organizers expect backlash and attempts to shut down events. IAW 2010 was no different. The Ontario Legislature condemned IAW, The Toronto District School Board banned IAW from its premises even though no events were scheduled there, and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff slammed IAW for the second year in a row.
One noticeable difference is that this year queer issues have been front and centre in the attacks on IAW. This is no doubt in response to the “Coming out Against Apartheid” event at IAW, along with the huge success of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA). This backlash is an indication of success — our movement is growing and evoking strong reactions from Israel’s supporters. While this is something to be proud of, it means that now more than ever, all of us need to be prepared to answer these attacks by clearly giving our reasons for being queers against Israeli apartheid. My goal in writing is to give everyone the rationale behind queer Palestine solidarity organizing so that they can be empowered to counter the homophobic, sexist and racist arguments put forward by Israel’s supporters.
So I am going to take you on a little journey into pro-Israel logic around queer issues — along the way, I will challenge their rationale and dismantle their arguments, so that when readers are confronted with them, they can readily do the same.
The Zionists attacks queer down into three main points:
1. Palestinian society is inherently homophobic.
2. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and the only safe-haven for queers.
3. Queers worldwide should naturally align with queer-friendly Israel, not homophobic Palestinians.
Palestine is Homophobic
Let’s look at the first argument: Palestinian society is homophobic. I cannot disagree with that statement. Queer Palestinians do face violence and discrimination and it is unacceptable. I oppose homophobia in Palestine, but I oppose it everywhere because it exists everywhere, even here. Queers in Canada have achieved some rights and many people have dedicated their lives to fighting for those rights. Despite what Canadian nationalists want us to believe, we didn’t get these rights because we live in the enlightened, tolerant west — it was not simply the natural course of history here. Social movements achieved these changes through struggle. Anyone engaged in activism knows how hard it is to mobilize people even under the best of circumstances. Now imagine trying to organize under military occupation and apartheid — these are the enormous additional challenges facing Palestinian queer social movements.
Just take for example the fact that there is no place on earth, not one square foot where a queer Palestinian citizen of Israel, a queer from Gaza, the West Bank, and a queer Palestinian refugee could meet. Gazans are under siege and cannot leave, people in the West Bank need permits to travel, Palestinian citizens of Israel cannot go to Gaza or the West Bank and many refugees cannot go anywhere. So before we criticize Palestinian homophobia, we need to look at the challenges facing activists there, and remember that there are activists there. We need to ask how can we best support queer Palestinian social movements? The answer to me is clearly that we fight Israeli apartheid. Ending apartheid is good for all Palestinian social movements — queer and straight.
Queer Palestinians are oppressed by Israel as Palestinians, not just as queers. We cannot choose to support them as queers, but not as Palestinians or vice versa. Real support comes through solidarity — it can and does effect change. In South Africa, alongside queer mobilizing there, international queer anti-apartheid activism shifted the ANC’s position on queer issues and to this day, South Africa has some of the most progressive gay rights in the world. This can happen in Palestine if we work alongside queer Palestinians through genuine solidarity and supporting the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). You can see that happening already. When queer filmmaker John Greyson pulled his film from the Toronto International Film Festival in protest over the city-to-city spotlight on Tel Aviv, he was attacked in fiercely homophobic ways. In response, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) put out a statement condemning the homophobia of those attacks. In early 2010, Judith Butler, one of the most famous queer theorists taught guest lectures at Bir Zeit University near Ramallah. How does this happen? It happens because Greyson and Butler stand with Palestinians, support BDS and their solidarity is clearly having an impact.
Israel is a safe haven for queers in the Middle East
Since we are on a journey into the pro-Israel mind, for the sake of argument I will take their first point as true — Palestinian society is inherently homophobic. That brings me to point two — Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and the only safe haven for queers. First of all, Israel is not a democracy — it is an apartheid state. Apartheid is a crime under international law, a crime of systematic segregation based on race or ethnicity. Israel’s war crimes in the West Bank — settlements, checkpoints, the Apartheid Wall — and last year’s brutal military assault and the now three-year-long siege of Gaza are well documented, but the situation inside Israel itself is also one of apartheid. Palestinian citizens of Israel are second-class citizens — they cannot own much of the land, their towns and villages receive limited services, if any, and recently Israel banned the teaching of the Nakba — Arabic for catastrophe, referring to the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine in order to create the State of Israel. Israel is at best an ethnic democracy, meaning that membership in an ethnic group is required to have full rights. An ethnic democracy is not a democracy, it is apartheid.
In terms of queer rights, yes, Israel has pride parades, some protection against discrimination and homosexuality is not illegal. Israel is not free of homophobia — the murder of two queer people in Tel Aviv last year, the stabbings at Jerusalem Pride in 2005 prove that homophobic violence still exists in Israel. The militarization of Israeli society only increases the level of violence there. However, for the sake of argument I will humour the Zionists and say that queers in Israel have a good thing going. The problem is that none of these rights are truly extended to queer Palestinians. I want to exemplify this by recounting part of my trip to Palestine this summer. I was in the West Bank and was invited to Jerusalem Pride. With a Canadian passport, I can make a trip from Ramallah to Jerusalem, but a queer Palestinian from the West Bank would have to sneak into Jerusalem for Pride and could easily wind up in jail instead. At Pride in Jerusalem, soldiers and police outnumber participants by at least two to one. It may seem obvious, but if you need an army for your parade, your country is not safe for queers. All the speeches made at Pride revolved around the theme of making Jerusalem an open, diverse and welcoming city. It was clearly a message to homophobes, but in an occupied city that is off limits to millions of Palestinians, the message is sickeningly ironic. I am not arguing that queer Israelis should not fight for their rights. My point here is that whatever rights queer Israeli’s enjoy, queer Palestinians do not. You cannot have true equality when apartheid exists.
Queers Must Support Israeli Apartheid
I now turn to the final, crucial step in Zionist logic: queers worldwide must support gay positive Israel, not homophobic Palestine. Intuitively we know this is wrong. It is offensive that they think that as queers we define our solidarity based on their narrow definition of gay rights and that they think we would forgive racism because they grant some gay rights. Yet somehow this argument is proving effective. To untangle this one fully though, we need to talk about what is really going on here. It comes down to this — Israel, like most western imperial powers, has managed to co-opt the language of feminist and queer rights.
To explain how this works, it helps to look at Canada first. So we have the real Canada — where there are over 500 murdered or missing aboriginal women that the police are not searching for, thousands of people, predominantly women living in poverty across the country and a Minister of Citizenship and Immigration appointing homophobes to the Immigration and Refugee Board. Then we have the mythical tolerant multicultural Canada, gay rights leader and liberator of Afghan women. I must admit the strategy is brilliant — commit massive human rights violations, but trumpet the human rights you do offer in order to cover up your crimes. Then you can claim that unlike non-western states you respect women and queers and therefore you are civilized, democratic countries. That is how they demonize non-Western states — label them intolerant and justify military occupations that bring tolerance to the intolerant.
In Israel’s case, they claim to be democratic, civilized and tolerant because, unlike the allegedly sexist, homophobic Palestinians, they respect women and defend the human rights of gays and lesbians. This becomes blatantly obvious when you see the way the Israeli State promotes that they allow women and queer people to serve in the army. This inclusion is used to make the Israeli army appear tolerant and inclusive. This ignores, of course, that this “open” and “welcoming” army commits war crimes against Palestinians — including women and queer people. There are no gay-friendly bombs, no feminist checkpoints and no such thing as a moral army.
If we do not challenge Israeli Apartheid as queer people, we allow the Israeli state to continue to propagate the myth that it is a tolerant, civilized democracy, even as it commits war crimes and repeatedly violates international law. When queer people visibly stand up against Israeli apartheid we interfere, not just with their PR campaigns, but with myth-making that is vital to letting them get away with apartheid.
Pride and ‘Politics’
One of the pro-Israel arguments that came out during protests against QuAIA marching in the Toronto Pride parade last year was the charge that QuAIA marching was politicizing Pride. Yes, it is offensive that straight, mostly homophobic Zionists are trying to tell us what pride is supposed to be about, but here I am inclined to agree with their assessment. Pride has, in many ways, lost touch with its radical roots and QuAIA is a return to good old-fashioned radical queer politics.
At a time where the Canadian military, the police, all political parties and major corporations march in pride, we need groups like QuAIA and other radical queer activists to make Pride political again. I often think that it would not be such a bad thing if pride lost all its corporate sponsorships. Think about it. What if queers here refused to buy into Canadian nationalism that tells us how great this country is because we have gay marriage? What if we instead demand to know why our country is involved in imperialist wars worldwide and wars on poor people, sex workers, migrants and First Nations people here at home? What if we recognize that we have won rights through struggle and honour those who fought, but at the same time critically examine how some of these rights were because some corporations know there is money to be made off us? What if we refuse to be a niche market, walking homo-dollar bills and instead spent our time, energy and resources to stand up against homophobia, racism, capitalism and apartheid? When that happens, we will have something to be proud of. So I am encouraging everyone to get involved — join Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and come out for Pride 2010 to make the anti-apartheid contingent bigger, bolder and louder than last year.
Jenny Peto is an activist with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid.
Gayblackcanada 
typical trash that I would expect to be proliferated ob Rabble and of course all the gang of bullies on Babble.
Here’s an excellent expose on Ms Preto
http://tinyurl.com/2vaq65r
I have a question, why are you calling Jennifer Peto’s article trash without even explaining your opinion? I’ve read Jonathan Kay’s article but his argument is just proving Jennifer’s powerful statement that white Jews fail to acknowledge their white skin privilege. In the year 2010, white Jewish people in North America are a part of the white majority they are not a minority group.
Jennifer Peto provides a cogent argument that the white Jewish leaders are promoting this victimhood of the holocaust while ignoring their white skin priivilege and status in Canada. The negativity Jennifer Peto has received proves when someone challenges the white Jewish oligarchy in Canada they get angry.
The mainstream press also want to promote this victimhood of white Jews while not examining the power they have in Canada. World War II was a long time ago and although that time period was tragic, it wasn’t just white Jews that Hitler attacked. Some people seem to forget this point.
Now maybe fifty years ago this is not true, but as Jennifer points out European immigrants over time assimilated into whiteness and purchased their white status. In Canada, the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese are also a part of the white Canadian majority along with the white Jews.
You cannot say in the year 2010 that a white Jewish person experiences the same level of discrimination as a black, Asian, or Native Canadian person. White Jewish people are a part of whiteness and they need to examine their white skin privilege.
Jennifer Peto is correct.
It’s trash because she does not “make an argument” She starts of with a conclusion (largely based upon her own personal feelings) and the hunts for material from like minded individuals such as Norman Finkelstein to “prove” her thesis. It may have been along time since I wrote a university thesis but this type of “research” would never cut the mustard in a university. Times have changed and political correctness of the pseud0-left trumps I guess.
There has been a measurable increase in anisemitic incidents over the last ten years particularly where Muslims have a large presence. Canada for example wins eh award for giving birth to that racist hate freak festival known as “Israel Apartheid Week.” Imagine the repercussion if there was a “Islam Fascist” week. Cars would burn!
Ironically Ms Preto has (like Finkelstein et al) given ammunition to all the ant-semite bigots in the world. Sadly.
Kay hit the nail on the head by calling a spade a shovel. Preto should get some real therapy instead of using her “thesis” as some sort of personal psycho-babble catharsis.
Maybe you need to do your own research….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00c3449/Heart_And_Soul_The_Holocaust_Deniers_Episode_1
http://propagandistmag.com/2010/09/24/kind-talk-can-get-you-trouble-part-3
Not very suprised, I see your opinion but you did not answer the question about white Jewish Canadians having white skin privlege? Are you going to deny that white Jews are not white people in the Canadian nation state? Jennifer Peto isn’t just talking about the past she’s talking about the political climate in the west now for white Jews. In the western world white Jews need to realize they are white first and Jewish second. White Jews are a part of whiteness.
So what is your point??? That white Jews are white and black Jews are black?
The real point is that Jenny Peto’s thesis to be polite is intellectually dishonest. But read this as it puts it better than I or Mr. Kay did:
http://tinyurl.com/27ww7bw
“One such question – one that Peto needs to answer — is this: is the existence of Israel, a country that offers legal protections to homosexuals, a boon or a hindrance to the state of gay rights in the Middle East?
On one hand we have a country where homosexuals are protected from human rights abuses, and where they are offered full equality before the law. On the other hand, we have countries where homosexuals are brutally horsewhipped. We have countries where homosexuals are beheaded, and as if this isn’t enough, crucified afterward.
The answer, for anyone who is taking homosexuals seriously as an ends unto themselves, is evident: the answer to the riddle of human rights for homosexuals in the Middle East isn’t the elimination of Israel. Rather, countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and governments like the Palestinian Authority, should emulate Israel’s example.
To suggest that international criticism of these governments will spur them to immediately mend their ways is actually rather naive. But one other thing is certain: as long as people like Peto continue to write them a free pass for their brutality of homosexuals, they will merely be emboldened to continue.
That is the ultimate perversity of Jenny Peto’s attempts to transplant the grievances of western anti-Zionist activists to Palestinian homosexuals. Peto rather gleefully joins hands with Hamas, whose hands drip with the blood of Palestinian homosexuals, in the name of “solidarity”.
In doing this, she declares her contempt for western protections for the human rights of homosexuals, even as she reaps the benefits of those protections.
Some have described Peto as “brave” in the midst of the backlash against her thesis. There’s nothing brave or courageous about exploiting the plight of Palestinian homosexuals in support of ends that would actually make their plight far, far worse. There’s nothing brave or courageous about doing this while refusing – simply refusing – to address the very real issue of institutionalized homophobia in the Middle East. There’s nothing brave or courageous about doing this while living in a country that protects her from homophobic violence.
Rather, it’s crassly hypocritical at best, and simply cowardly at worst. But Jenny Peto probably hasn’t stopped to consider this; after all, she’s finally getting all the attention she’s ever craved.”
The point is the white Jews in Israel and North America promote this victimhood when they have white skin privilege. This isn’t World War II this is 2010 there is no difference between a regular white western person and the white Jews.
The white Jews promote this victimhood there is this discourse they are a minority while they ignore their whiteness.
Jennifer Peto did not disagree that Israel has protection for gays and lesbians. However, Israel isn’t the Netherlands gays still encounter a lot of homophobia in Israel. Also, Peto makes a strong argument, queer Palestinians that are citizens of Israel are treated like second class citizens. And I think you are ignoring Peto’s point, queer Palestinians are treated as inferior because Israel is an apartheid state just like South Africa.You say it doesn’t matter if a Jewish person is white or black but in Israel racism is rampant against non white Jews and this is a fact. Anyone that is not of a white Jewish background encounters a lot of racism in Israel. So I think it is a bit lame on your part to ignore the power of whiteness and white skin privilege in Israel and the western world.
It is well known that black Jews in Israel encounter a lot of racial prejudice but of course this isn’t on the six O’ clock news.
Peto is correct white Jews need to acknowledge their white skin privilege they are white first and Jews second.
It seems to me that Jennifer Peto vastly oversimplifies complex issues. Many Jews do have white skin privilege but I would hold that in the aftermath of the Holocaust such privilege is, in the aggregate, more tenuous for Jews than for white Christians, because Peto does not take into account the countervailing force of white Christian privilege. White skin privilege, for example, certainly did not prevail in the horrific anti-Jewish torture and murder of Ilan Halimi in France. This did NOT happen during World War 2. It happened a few years ago. In addition, while it is clear that Israel is enforcing a profoundly unjust matrix of control in the West Bank and Gaza, it is an oversimplification to conclude that Israel proper is an apartheid state. Apartheid states would not, for example, allow marriages between Ashkenazi and Ethiopian Jews. Peto’s thesis is problematic. She overgeneralizes from two holocaust education programs and then concludes that all of them are hegemonic and racist. She does not clearly specify how she is defining hegemony. She does not explain how she chose the two programs in question. Nor does she explain how other Holocaust education programs (there must be hundreds, if not thousands, in Canada and the U.S.; not to mention Europe!) are similar or different to the ones she claims are the “hegemonic” ones. Chapter One of her thesis, in which she discusses her experiences with racism and homophobia while growing up, would have worked well as a standalone autoethnography or memoir; with their detailed personal observations about racism and homophobia in a specific time and a specific place. However, one cannot extrapolate from chapter One (Peto’s autobiographical experiences ) to chapter Three (the thesis that all holocaust education programs are hegemonic and racist.) In addition, as someone with a masters in anthropology (New School for Social Research, 1981) I’m surprised that Peto did not find it necessary to do any fieldwork or interviews with the students, staff, or educators of the two programs she so roundly condemns. For someone who is ostensibly so concerned with fighting racism, I find it odd that she apparently did not find it necessary to interview any of the students of color who participated in one of the programs she criticizes. Lastly, I find frankly offensive her implication that Holocaust survivors, who are frequent participants in Holocaust education programs, would not have anything of value to offer students of color. This implication, which she hints at in a cavalier remark about questioning whether whites can ever teach anything of value to people of color about racism and genocide, is insulting to the intelligence of people of color because it implies that they are incapable of making distinctions between good, middling, and mediocre teachers for themselves; whatever the subject in question may be. Ironically, it cancels out the anti-racist intent of Peto’s thesis itself as the reductive conclusion that Peto would have to come to would be that she, as a white person, can’t teach anything of value to people of color about racism and genocide and so, ipso facto, they should not read her thesis! I think that Peto’s thesis advisor should have been more pro-active in helping Peto produce a thesis of higher quality. It could have been done, but it wasn’t.
Clearly you did not read the article I posted as it takes apart the very same ill-founded argument you parrot from Peto
“Peto’s experiences within her own community – if they are indeed as she describes them – are tragic, and should be recognized as such. But unless Peto had taken up the practice of launching rockets into neighbouring boroughs, opening fire on civilians with an AK-47, or tunnelling toward police positions in violation of a cease fire, she can’t honestly describe her community’s rejection of her as tantamount to Israel protecting itself from the genocidal Palestinian extremists she sides with.
It’s sad that Peto would be alienated from her community for being an outspoken homosexual. This is not the same as Israel protecting itself from terrorism.
In Peto’s arguments, expressed both in her thesis and in a speech given to a 2010 Israeli Apartheid week event, one can find an example of how the arguments of the modern far-left have taken a very bizarre turn, one wherein western values – including human rights for homosexuals – become not laudable ends, but grounds for derision.”
Secondly ant-Jewishness, bigotry and or antisemitism is alive and well but in a different form…thanks to those like Ms Peto who hide beneath their “I am just anti-Zionist: not anti semitic” cloak. It is profoundly duplicitous to say that Jews are not allowed to have a home land because brown -skinned people were displaced. That seems to be her and other’s from the pseudo-left’s credo.
I can tell you that my parents were not priviledged notwithstanding their skin tone but in fact were outrageously discrimiated against. I too experinced it and again thanks to the anti-Ziuonist crowd/radical Islamo Fascism, am now experiencing it again.
Click to access AS-WorkingDefinition-draft.pdf
The fact that you sir repeat the biggest lie of them all, that Israel is an Apartheid state conforms that you too cannot possible let the facts get in the way of your idealogy.
So yes I admit I am privileged as a white middle class Canadian BUT not because I am Jewish and I will not admit the lie that poor Palestinians have a hopeless existence in Israel because of their skin tone…in fact they ace far greater descrimiation in all Arab countries where they are prohibited from owning land ad voting. That they can do in Israel.
As for gay rights:
“The most vile, militant and murderous homophobia imaginable is institutionalized within the Palestinian Authority. It may or may not be fair to speculate whether or not Peto would have any sympathy for the homosexuals jailed, tortured, and even killed by Hamas – Hamas labels them as “Israeli collaborators”.
Peto seems to think that having stated that she opposes homophobia everywhere that she’s permanently excused from having to criticize the homophobia of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, or of countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Instead, she invents a fictional world wherein Israel is the biggest obstacle to human rights for Palestinian homosexuals, as opposed to the governments that routinely jail them, and even kill them.”
From the earlier article I cited.
Rather than parrot or goose step to the usual rhetoric that the likes of Peto spew I would suggest you visit Israel and see for yourself how the state exists where Jews and Muslims coexist. You would learn more than from reading fart in their cushion pseudo intellectuals like Pet have to say.
My main contact with gay activists is when some of them tried to undermine my freedom of speech by painting a swastika inside their own center in order to get a controversial right-wing free speech group banned from a university, a group at which I spoke about ‘Fake hate crimes and the Israel Lobby’. I argue that pc politics is more use to Israel than not. Jennifer Peto ingeniously tries to use it to oppose Zionism. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t quite work. As she concedes, Israel is the most liberal country in the Middle East. Palestine solidarity is a single-issue campaign, and it’s all about prioritizing one issue above others. Which is more important, the right for gays and lesbians to be completely open, or the defence of children against having phosphorus bombs dropped on them?
Jay Knott, I don’t think Jennifer Peto is saying Israel is some instances progressive. I think Jennifer is saying the racism and prejudice that Palestinian people experience in Israel needs to be addressed. For instance, why do Palestinian people have to go through check points? The whole check point system is similar to South Africa when blacks had to go through check points.
Jnny Peto is indeed a genius in developing a masters thesis out of propaganda diatribe so much so that her own family has disowned her. She does a disservice to all those seeking the rights of gay and urinates on the memories of Holocaust survivors including her grandmother.
The real problem is that her “thesis” is drivel and intellectually dishonest. But that shouldn’t prevent her from becoming another poster girl for the demonetization of Israel.
“Loosely translated, Peto’s thesis amounts to something in the realm of: “I’m onto you, you rich Jews. You’re using the Holocaust to deny your privileged status and pursue your Zionist exploits!” Actually, that language isn’t far from what Peto uses in her paper. But if Peto wants to spend her time typing foolishness at her laptop, that’s her choice. Academic freedom shouldn’t deny even the most nonsensical of pursuits. But academic freedom does not mean freedom from academic standards, and unfortunately, Peto’s paper seems to blur the line. After trudging through more than 100 pages of political hyperbole and unsubstantiated claims, it seems questions should be raised about the conception of academic standards at U of T’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) where Peto was awarded her master’s degree.
Unsupported claims pepper Peto’s paper. For example, she argues that youth on the March of the Living (MOL) trip are “taught that their whiteness can only be maintained through racism, both in supporting Israel and [. . .] benefiting from racism and imperialism in their home” [p.98]. Read that sentence again, bearing in mind that Peto did not interview a single MOL participant—nor did she speak with any organizers, tour guides or chaperones. Yet perhaps through some sort of hegemony-sniffing ESP, Peto knows these kids are taught racist ideas about upholding their whiteness and power through imperialism.
Referring to the trip’s chaperones, the student said, “They told us that as much as we say ‘never forget,’ similar things still happen today. We’re not on March of the Living to play a passive role.”
Intensely victimized? This testimony reveals the opposite. Perhaps another would too? Yet Peto scoffs off such primary research as “beyond the scope of this project” [p.82]. Another questionable assertion that Peto makes is that the “Holocaust industry” focuses on the “uniqueness of the Holocaust,” causing Jews “to focus too much on their own victimhood, thereby preventing them from using the Holocaust to see parallels with other struggles” [p.44].
Is this true?
“The organization sent us packages before we left for the trip,” the Queen’s past participant says. “There was a whole section on modern genocides; Rwanda and Darfur.”
Of course, this is just testimony from one individual. Yet it speaks to the Pandora’s Box of information that would be revealed from conducting actual interviews.
The list of unsubstantiated claims in Peto’s paper goes on…..
OISE has every right to approve Peto’s thesis for exploration, but it does not have to accept the validity of her argument. Her conclusions are based on faulty evidence (when based on evidence at all) and rely on secondary resources unrelated to the two Holocaust education programs in question. The 19-year-old past participant may not have a PhD or penned as many works as the authors referenced in Peto’s paper, but her testimony is immeasurably more relevant and appropriate for such an analysis. A master’s student should know that, and should have interviewed a wide spectrum of sources. It is distasteful that Peto chose to attack those hoping to promote good, unacceptable that she invoked unsubstantiated claims to support her statements, but it is contemptible that the OISE award a graduate degree for such a polemic.”
Contempt indeed.
http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2010/12/10/academic-freedom-is-not-freedom-from-standards/
To the comment I made above I would add that approximately 20% of the Jewish population in the United States is comprised of Jews of color, and happily that number is growing. I would also add that Jewish anti-racist educator Paul Kivel produces a far more nuanced and accurate analysis of issues related to Jews, whiteness, and racism than Peto does because he considers the still ongoing reality of Christian (institutional) domination and notes: “Anti-Semitism is similar too, different from and intertwined with racism.” In Chapter Two of her thesis, Peto fails to consider how Anti-semitism is intertwined with racism, and how that means that the life experiences of Ashkenazi Jews may be, in some respects, qualitatively different from those of non-Jews in Canada and the U.S., even when Ashkenazi Jews have white privilege in some respects.
With regard to homophobia, it is pervasive in the Middle East, including Palestine. Homophobia also exists in Israel, but on average not as strongly as in other countries in the Middle East. To say this is not to be Islamophobic, it is simply to make a valid conclusion from the empirical evidence. Indeed, it would be homophobic to ignore the abysmal situation for LGBT people in countries such as Egypt, Iran, and Iraq; which have been producing LGBT refugees fleeing from torture and other forms of horrific oppression. Nor will I ignore that in one horrible case a Palestinian gay man was arrested by Palestinian authorities and forced to sit down naked on a glass bottle. In this case, Israel was not involved.
The fact that police guard gay parades in Israel means that they are protecting LGBT people from harm. Contrast this with the situation in Palestine, where most LGBT people remain far more closeted – which does NOT at all justified Israel’s unjust occupation of the West Bank and Gaza; which I oppose. I do agree that the occupation makes it more difficult for Palestinian LGBT people to organize than for Israeli LGBT people to organize. That is why I, as an American Jewish feminist who supports LGBT rights, was heartened to read that some Israel gay men have been organizing to press the Israeli government to make it easier for LGBT Palestinians to be granted asylum in Israel when they have a well-founded fear of anti-LGBT persecution in the West Bank and Gaza.
Peto’s thesis is academically quite good, compared with some of what comes out of North American universities. For example, you can do a postgrad degree in ‘Hello Kitty’. What’s interesting is how this particular piece of trendy post-modernism caused such a splenetic reaction – it’s because, instead of blaming everything on white Europeans, she mentions Jewish privilege. Well, actually, she tries to reduce it to white privilege, but it’s a start… The reaction of Karen Mock, a leading Jewish ‘anti-racist’ campaigner is revealing. She was happy with logic-defying statements like “race, whiteness and ethnicity produce, and are produced by, nationalist discourses.” (actual quote), but when HER ‘privilege’ was examined, her inner tribal racist came out.
Jenny Peto has accidentally exposed the Jewish racism behind anti-racism. As for being ‘disowned by her own family’, I hope she reciprocates.