If you've been at a protest recently, chances are you've heard any one of these slogans: No pride in genocide! Happy pride as in f*ck Israel! Or, Not gay as in happy but queer as in free Palestine! 

No Pride in Genocide is also the name of a collective of Queer and Trans anti-Zionist Palestinians, Arab/SWANA folks, Jews, and allies working for a free Palestine. This movement, along with popular online initiatives such as the digital archive Queering the Map and Toronto's own Queers 4 Palestine, have been increasing awareness of pinkwashing, "a critical term used to refer to the practice of attempting to benefit from purported support for LGBTQ+ rights, often as a way to profit or to distract from a separate agenda."

In the wake of Israel's continued assault on Iran this June, the hijacking of the Madleen and the imposed starvation in Gaza, now more than ever, queer and trans communities must understand our pride as synonymous with our politics.

In reflecting on these sentiments, we share an excerpt from Tim McCaskell's seminal text, Queer Progress. The following is from the chapter, "We're Not in Kansas Anymore," which contextualizes the origins of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto as well as the origins of Brand Israel in Toronto and its collusions not only with Pride Toronto but with other organizations in the city such as the Toronto International Film Festival. This excerpt provides a glimpse into the long-standing conversation by Torontonians on the politics of Pride. 

To read more of Queer Progress or check out any of our other books, we are hosting a sitewide 20% off sale from June 23 to June 30, 2025.

QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID

At first glance, the Middle East would seem a long way from Toronto, even though, in a fast globalizing world, distances were collapsing. Still, few would have predicted that Israel/Palestine would be the next flashpoint in Toronto gay politics.

By 2008, Palestinians made up the largest and most long-standing refugee population in the world. Displaced by Israeli ethnic cleansing in 1948, many had been refugees for sixty years. Millions were stateless and living in surrounding Arab countries or scattered throughout the world. In the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, four million had lived under Israeli occupation since 1967. Palestinians had tried many strategies to regain their homeland: armed struggle, spontaneous uprisings, and UN-brokered talks. All had failed. Israel refused to comply with international refugee law and continued expanding its illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

In 2005 Palestinian civil society organizations agreed on a new strategy, an international call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions until Israel complied with international law. That would mean allowing refugees to return to their homes, giving full rights to Palestinians living in Israel, and ending its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The strategy was modelled on the international campaign to isolate apartheid South Africa thirty years before. “Israeli apartheid” was not a rhetorical slogan. It had been used to describe the situation by well-known figures such as former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was based on the uncanny similarities between the two systems, as evidenced in a major 2009 study by the South African Human Sciences Research Council. There were separate laws and education systems, housing segregation, a pass system to regulate movement, daily humiliations, huge disparities in wealth, and brutal military repression to keep the system in place. Visiting South Africans often remarked that what they saw in Palestine was worse than what they had experienced in South Africa.

The BDS strategy rejuvenated an international solidarity movement, including Israeli Apartheid Week events on university campuses. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid formed in 2008 after one such event at the University of Toronto. The small group’s original membership was mostly young, many already friends. Most had studied equity issues and were acquainted with Queer Theory. About a third were Jewish, and there were a few Palestinians.

That year at Pride, a gaggle of QuAIA activists marched, sandwiched between the CUPE and Canadian Union of Postal Workers. CUPE Ontario had endorsed the Palestinian call for BDS in 2006, and CUPW had become the first country-wide union to do so in April 2008. It was not the first time that Israeli politics had surfaced at Pride. The largely lesbian and bi Jewish Women’s Committee to End the Occupation had marched regularly during the late 1980s and early ’90s carrying Palestinian solidarity messages.

BRAND ISRAEL

By 2008, the stakes were higher. Israeli brutality and its occupation of Palestinian lands had seriously tarnished the county’s international reputation. In October 2005 after a review of “specialized research conducted by American marketing executives,” the directors of Israel’s three most powerful ministries, the Foreign Ministry, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Finance Ministry launched a new public relations campaign, “Brand Israel.”

Brand Israel, aimed at U.S. and European audiences, was based on marketing theory: establishing brand loyalty is more important than the merits of a product. It called for downplaying religion and avoiding mention of the Palestinian conflict. Instead, it focused on Israel’s contribution to medicine, technology, and culture. The country would be associated with warm, fuzzy, core liberal values: modernity, democracy, innovation, and progress. The resulting brand loyalty, it was hoped, would render the North American and European public impervious to Palestinian arguments about human rights and international law.

In August 2008, the Israeli consulate announced Toronto would be a test market for Brand Israel. The lessons learned would inform the subsequent worldwide rollout. Consul General Amir Gissin revealed plans for an exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a major presence in the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

According to the UK Guardian, “One of the most remarkable features of the Brand Israel campaign is the marketing of a modern Israel as a gay-friendly Israel.” This was not simply aimed at winning friends and encouraging tourism among queer communities.

Within global gay and lesbian organizing circuits, to be gay friendly is to be modern, cosmopolitan, developed, first-world, global north, and, most significantly, democratic. Events such as World Pride 2006 hosted in Jerusalem, and “Out in Israel” recently held in San Francisco highlight Israel as a country committed to democratic ideals of freedom for all, including gays and lesbians.

Our community was being played to support an apartheid regime.

—Tim McCaskell, September 2016

Read the next chapter of Queer Progress, "Homonationalism," and other rad texts in our 2023 Read Palestine Week Sampler. Make sure you check out Publishers for Palestine, a global solidarity collective of more than 500 publishers who stand for justice, freedom of expression, and the power of the written word in solidarity with the people of Palestine.