Earlier this fall, the International Gay and Lesbian Youth Organization cancelled its planned December General Assembly in Tel Aviv. The cancellation was in response to a call from the Palestinian queer group, PQBDS, to respect the international boycott of Israel until that country complies with international law. Despite this cancellation, the Israeli Gay Youth organization is going ahead with an international Youth Leaders Summit in the same city scheduled for the same month.
While development of queer youth leadership is an important effort, QuAIA urges all youth organizations and delegates to boycott this conference. This conference, which is receiving support from the Israeli state, is part of the ongoing “pinkwashing” campaign to promote the image of Israel as a leader in queer rights in order to deflect attention from its ongoing human rights abuses against Palestinians.
Despite conference organizers’ claims to want to promote conversations with queer Palestinians, no Palestinian queer groups have been invited, and it is highly unlikely that Palestinian queer youth would be allowed to make it through Israel’s draconian system of checkpoints and permits to attend a conference in Tel Aviv in any case. Tel Aviv is also inaccessible to queer youth from the Arab world.
We believe that it is inappropriate to hold an international conference in a country that illegally occupies another and creates second class citizens on the basis of ethnicity.