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So there's a lot. So Israel's public image is not very good. And, they've been like this
over the years. And so there's been different, over the time period from 1948, from the Nakba,
to today, there have been different excuses and different stories, different narratives
that have been told over time based on what the global consensus is and what the consensus
in Israel is. So there are different stories that need to be told about how you can claim
domination over a land, right, because when folks are, for a couple reasons, right, when
folks are doing the domination and colonization, right, you don't generally anymore say "I'm
doing this to hurt other people," right? You're not doing this to hurt another people, right,
you're doing this to either, in this case, the story that you're saving yourselves or
you have to do this, or you have to have some benevolent reason. You always have to explain
it to a worldwide audience, right, the UN is involved, um, as well as other countries
can get involved in various different ways. So, this is actually, so what we're talking
about today is something that Israeli consultants had met about and talked about and actually
planned out, which is creating a brand for Israel that is gonna be more palatable for
the international community, and for their own community too because there is resistance
within Israel. So, resistance within Israel and resistance outside of Israel, um, needs
to, needs to be stopped. And so they've actually started a re-branding campaign. So what we
talk about when we're talking about pinkwashing is actually only one part of that re-branding
campaign to try to explain away, either maybe by just covering up, or even explain why they
have to do what they're doing. Okay, so, I'll talk about that in a minute. So the re-branding
of Israel as far as from the pinkwashing stance, so some of the other ways they're doing it
is saying that they're a democratic country, um, just generally promoting different arts
and films, so um, we might have time to talk about the cultural boycott and the academic
boycott, but showing themselves as a more progressive country is all part of re-branding
as the kind of democracy that should be supported around the world. So let me get back to this.
So the *** focus on the rebranding of Israel, um, I'm gonna break into three different areas
that I've seen, that we've seen this re-branding happening or just branding of Israel as ***
friendly. One is in the area of tourism, the other is more cultural, um, some things have
some overlap, but arts and film, and the third is gay rights and activism. So, here is some,
um, pieces from, from Israel trying to convince gay tourists, they're mainly concentrated
on gay tourists from Europe, and from this ad you can see, this is actually significant
that they're gay male tourists, they're actually mostly, and I don't know I would say maybe
for economic reasons, they're mainly, we can talk about that too, it's not the focus of
this talk, but they're mainly focused on gay male tourism and gay males being brought to
Israel. So there's not a lot of lesbians or *** women represented in this campaign,
it's actually marketed towards gay men. So, anyway, so "Tel Aviv: This City Is Hot," um,
this is being promoted around the world, specifically Europe, and so that same article that I referenced
before, the NPR article, they also, you know, did due diligence, they talked to somebody
in Israel, so this is an Israeli official, talking about how LGBT rights in Israel are
truly an achievement and he says that its an obligation to show the world. This is part
of the branding, its not just that they're doing, they're trying to actually create ***
liberation for themselves, they're very interested in showing the world. It's intentional. So
there's different ways that pinkwashing can work. There's, pinkwashing can be, or you
can be part of pinkwashing intentionally or unintentionally. Israel is definitely intentionally
pinkwashing what they're doing, um, through these campaigns, but what's happening is,
and one of the reasons we want to talk to other LGBT groups and *** groups, is that
unintentionally other well-meaning LGBT groups are convinced to get on the, to get on board.
Oh, Israel is a great place to go, right? That's part of them pushing out the pinkwashing
message.