On June 10, Xtra Magazine, a self-proclaimed “non-profit online magazine and community platform covering LGBTQ+ culture, politics, relationships and health,” published a video article titled “Activists call on Prides to divest from Israel.” The video recycles familiar anti-Israel accusations, including a concept referred to as “pinkwashing.” This claim suggests that Israel uses its progressive LGBTQ+ policies as a way to distract from its policies regarding the Palestinians. However, this accusation is not only baseless but also strategically harmful, delegitimizing genuine support for Israel’s LGBTQ+ community, which finds no safe haven elsewhere in the Middle East.
Mel Woods, Xtra’s senior editor, asserts that “as Pride Month kicks off, there is a growing movement of activists working to call out queer organizations for pinkwashing and asking them not to take money from companies who have financial ties to Israel’s current military operation in Gaza.” The notion of pinkwashing accuses Israel of granting LGBTQ+ rights to shield its treatment of Palestinians from scrutiny. This argument is not only a factual distortion but also disregards the significant advances Israel has made in human rights, particularly for LGBTQ+ individuals, who enjoy greater freedoms in Israel than in any neighboring country.
Woods further claimed that Pride organizations are being urged to “divest from sponsors and affiliations with companies that, in the words of one group, ‘enable the occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.’” To invoke the term “ethnic cleansing” is to make a baseless and inflammatory accusation. One-fifth of Israel’s population is Arab, with full and equal rights. Ethnic cleansing, by definition, aims to remove or eradicate an unwanted population. Israel’s inclusive demographic realities invalidate such a claim.
The article continues by citing Al Jazeera, which reported over 37,000 deaths and nearly 85,000 injuries in Gaza as of June 9. These figures are presented as proof of Israel’s supposed aggression. However, what Xtra and similar publications fail to mention is the genocidal intent of Hamas, the terrorist organization that started this war by slaughtering 1,200 Israelis on October 7 and taking over 200 hostages. This attempt to create a false equivalence between Israel’s self-defense and Hamas’s war crimes ignores the harsh reality: Hamas’s sole aim is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of the Jewish people, as outlined explicitly in the Hamas Charter.
The massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 involved atrocities including beheadings, rapes, and burning victims alive. These crimes, combined with Hamas’s charter that calls for the extermination of Jews globally, make their intentions unequivocal. Ignoring these realities, the piece tries to paint Israel’s response to Hamas as excessive. However, Israel, like any other nation, has the right and responsibility to defend its citizens. Israel has consistently worked to limit civilian casualties, even while Hamas uses civilians as human shields, hides military operations in schools and hospitals, and launches rockets from densely populated areas.
Furthermore, the figures quoted by Al Jazeera, a media arm of the Qatari government, are inherently questionable, as they are often based on information provided by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas. These numbers do not differentiate between combatants and civilians, and include deaths caused by natural causes, Palestinian infighting, or Hamas’s own misfires. The propagation of these figures without context, as Xtra does, serves only to fuel disinformation.
Ultimately, Xtra’s article, in aligning itself with a pro-Hamas narrative, has chosen to ignore the horrifying reality faced by the LGBTQ+ community in Gaza, where homosexuals face persecution, torture, and even execution. Israel, by contrast, is the only Middle Eastern country where LGBTQ+ individuals enjoy equal rights and societal acceptance. In attacking Israel for pinkwashing, Xtra is not only denying the significant progress Israel has made in advancing LGBTQ+ rights, but it is also aligning with Hamas, a terrorist group that actively endorses violence against LGBTQ+ people.
Xtra Magazine’s attempt to label Israel with the derogatory accusation of pinkwashing is not only a distortion of reality but also a dangerous embrace of propaganda designed to delegitimize the only true democracy in the Middle East. By promoting this narrative, Xtra aligns itself with those who oppose both Israel’s right to exist and the very LGBTQ+ rights it claims to champion. The publication’s accusations do nothing to further the cause of equality and human rights but instead amplify a dangerous and deeply flawed ideology.
