QuAIA Seattle

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is planning a trip to Israel this coming June. He’ll be keynoting a pinkwashing conference organized by A Wider Bridge (the Israel advocacy group that partnered with StandWithUs to organize the pinkwashing tour we protested in Seattle in 2012).  He’ll also be engaging in a “business and trade mission” to Israel with the Seattle Trade Alliance.

Write to Ed Murray (ed.murray@seattle.gov) and tell him to honor the boycott of Israeli apartheid and refuse to participate in pinkwashing Israel’s brutality. There is No Pride in Apartheid!

Your letter is important–no matter how short or how long. Write to Ed Murray and tell him to cancel his trip to Palestine. Lots of info you can add below if you want.

Talking points you could include in your letter:

• You called for boycott of Indiana in March 2015 to protest homophobia – honor the Palestinian call for boycott of Israel to join a global protest of colonialism and apartheid.
  • Seattle shouldn’t be seeking out new trade partnerships with Israel, we should be boycotting Israel until it ends apartheid practices, honors Palestinian right of return, ends the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, and dismantles the wall.
  • There are over 50 laws in Israel that explicitly discriminate against Palestinian citizens in addition to the home demolitions, restrictions of movement, and military brutality against people in the West Bank and the imprisonment and bombardment of all the people in Gaza.
  • Israel has been found in violation of international law again and again, yet refuses to comply. That’s why a boycott strategy is essential, and why violating the boycott is an endorsement of a brutal apartheid regime.
• The “40 Years of Pride” Conference is part of a pinkwashing strategy that co-opts real work against homophobia and transphobia in service of occupation and apartheid.
  • Recently, Israel advocacy organizations like A Wider Bridge have engaged a new kind of Israel advocacy that is focused on using queer and trans rights discussions to promote an image of Israel as a progressive country in order to cover over its brutal human rights violations.
  • Pinkwashing erases the lives and agency of queer Palestinians and the work of queer Palestinian organizations.
  • A Wider Bridge partnered with the homophobic, right-wing organization StandWithUs in 2012 to bring an Israeli Consulate-sponsored pinkwashing tour to Seattle, and Seattle activists pushed back, exposed the propaganda and got the event at City Hall canceled.  The City should not be partnering with Israel advocacy organizations.
• There is no “neutral” way to attend this conference. Your participation endorses Israeli apartheid and the pinkwashing strategy. It implicates the City of Seattle in this misuse of LGBT liberation struggles.
• Add facts to your letter that you feel are most compelling:
  • Fact sheet on Gaza.
  • Facts about the Nakba.
  • Fact sheet on the Wall.
  • Fact sheet on water in Palestine.
  • Infographic about water in the West Bank.
  • Infographic on water in Gaza.
  • Fact sheet on illegal settlements.

Sample Letters:

• Sample Letter 1
• Sample Letter 2
• Sample Letter 3
• Sample Letter 4