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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/More-Than-60-LGBTQI-Groups-Boycott-Eurovision-Tel-Aviv-Pride-20190130-0016.html">https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/More-Than-60-LGBTQI-Groups-Boycott-Eurovision-Tel-Aviv-Pride-20190130-0016.html</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">More Than 60 LGBTQI Groups Boycott
Eurovision, Tel Aviv Pride</h1>
30 January 2019</div>
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<p>More than 60 LGBTQ groups from nearly 20 countries
called on other LGBTQ organizations to <a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/140-International-Artists-Call-for-Boycott-of-Eurovision-in-Israel-20180908-0015.html"
target="_blank">boycott the 2019 Eurovision contest</a>
in Israel. Eurovision has a strong following among the
LGBTQ communities.</p>
<p>The signatories accused Israel of distracting
“attention from its war crimes against Palestinians” and
“forward its pinkwashing agenda, the cynical use of gay
rights to distract from and normalize Israel’s
occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.”</p>
<p>Israel is hosting this year’s contest because Israeli
singer Netta Barzilai won the 2018 contest.</p>
<p>The groups criticized Israel for holding a Barzilai
concert on May 14, 2018 in Tel Aviv during the deadliest
day of weekly Gaza protest which claimed 62 Palestinian
lives at the hands of the Israeli occupation force.</p>
<p>The statement by the different organizations recalled
the 1969 Stonewall Riots which was an LGBTQ uprising
against daily violence and harassment and drew a
parallel with Gaza’s weekly protest for Great March of
Return and Israel’s decades of violent oppression of
Palestinians.</p>
<p>The signatories include: Palestinian collectives
al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian
Society; Pinkwatching Israel; Aswat- Palestinian
Feminist Center for Sexual and Gender Freedoms; the
National LGBT Committee for UNISON, one of the U.K.’s
largest trade unions; ACT UP groups in France and the
U.K.; the Panteras Rosa in Portugal; more than 20 queer
and trans groups in Spain and Italy; the Gay Liberation
Network; the Methodist Federation for Social Action; and
Jewish Voice for Peace's New York City Queer Caucus in
the U.S.</p>
<p>“Joining and promoting the call to boycott Eurovision
2019 in Israel and Tel Aviv Pride help expose the
Israeli government's reprehensible co-opting of queer
rights as a public relations tool to hide its crimes
against Palestinians. They strike a blow to its shameful
pinkwashing strategy to maintain its apartheid regime
and its decades-old colonization and occupation of
Palestine,” said Haneen Maikey, director of alQaws for
Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society.</p>
<p>The organizations also gave a call to <a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/There-Is-No-Pride-in-Occupation-LGBT-Activists-Block-Tel-Aviv-Pride-March-With-Pro-Palestinian-Protest-20180609-0005.html"
target="_blank">boycott the Tel Aviv pride parade and
festival</a> as according to them, Israel is
“promoting Eurovision alongside Tel Aviv Pride in order
to reap maximum benefits for Israel for an entire month
of pinkwashing.”</p>
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415 863.9977
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