For Queer, Palestinian, & Collective Liberation Statement in Support of The Pride Center of Vermont
Correction: Daniel Zeese was incorrectly identified in the fourth paragraph as a Zionist, and in the fifth paragraph as someone weaponizing accusations of anti-semitism instead of Rabbi Edleson. The sentences have been corrected and VCPL regrets the error.
Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Every individual and organization around the world is now faced with a decision: resist this crime against humanity, or defend it. The Pride Center of Vermont has joined the resistance, taking a stand in support of the Palestinian people and their struggle for self determination. Last December, The Pride Center issued a statement, “No Pride for Some of Us Without Liberation for All of Us,” calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
Written after a white racist shot three young Palestinians in Burlington, they reminded everyone that amidst a genocide - as in the history of the queer struggle for liberation around the world - “silence equals death.” Eight months later on the eve of Pride, Seven Days gave Zionists a platform to defame the Pride Center’s statement as “antisemitic.” The Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation (VCPL) calls on all those committed to peace, justice, and equality to reject this slander and instead support The Pride Center in its commitment to the Palestinian struggle as part of queer and collective liberation.
In issuing its statement, The Pride Center upheld the tradition of queer internationalism. From the Gay Liberation Front in the 1960s to queer anti-Zionists like Audre Lorde, James Baldwin, Judith Butler, bell hooks, and the movement for queer liberation in Palestine today, the LGBTQ+ community has insisted on the interconnectedness of all liberation struggles. In that spirit, they are part of the movement that declares none of us are free until all of us are free, including in Palestine.
That spirit was entirely missing from the Seven Days article. Violating journalistic norms, author Sasha Goldstein penned a one-sided screed against The Pride Center. He quotes only Zionists Rabbi Lynda Siegel and Rabbi David Edleson and former Pride Board members Wendy Beinner, Daniel Zeese, and Caryn Olivetti. He does not quote a single Palestinian or pro-Palestine activist. Each Zionist repeats the false allegation that criticizing Israel, even as it commits genocide, is anti-semitic.
No one should be surprised by this defamation. Last year, Siegel and Edleson weaponized accusations of anti-semitism to back the Democrats on Burlington’s City Council and block a ceasefire resolution. They did the same to stop a measure against Israeli apartheid from appearing on Burlington’s Town Meeting ballot. They trampled our democratic rights because they knew that if the people of Burlington were allowed to vote, a majority would oppose Israeli apartheid and its war in Gaza.
The Zionists’ charge of anti-semitism is groundless and slanderous. It depends on equating all Jews with Israel. In reality, before World War Two, a majority of Jews opposed Zionism and today a growing minority of Jews, especially young and queer Jews, oppose the state of Israel and support Palestinians in their struggle for self determination. Only Zionists–whether they are Jewish, secular, or Christian (Christians are in fact the vast majority of Zionists)–support Israel, its apartheid state, and its genocidal war. Supporting or opposing Israel is a political position and not one that can be equated with an entire religious or racial group.
The Zionists also denounce the Pride Center for excluding queer supporters of Israel. But, as the article makes clear, it did not exclude anyone; the Zionists resigned from the Board. What The Pride Center rightly did was to support Palestine, a position that the Zionists could not tolerate. Their bigotry underscores the argument Queers in Palestine make in their statement No Pride with Genocide: “No queer liberation can be achieved with settler-colonization, and no queer solidarity can be fostered if it stands blind to the racialized, capitalist, fascist, and imperial structures that dominate us.”
The Zionists base all their slanderous accusations against the Pride Center on pinkwashing, on painting Israel as a beacon of gay liberation in a sea of Middle Eastern homophobia. But, in reality, Israel is a homophobic society like all societies throughout the world. No society has ended homophobia and no society has a monopoly on that prejudice. And far from freeing queer Palestinians from oppression, Israel is massacring them and decimating their previously vibrant movement for queer liberation.
Disgracefully, the Zionists used Seven Days to discredit The Pride Center on the eve of Burlington’s Pride. But The Pride Center rejected their moral blackmail, stood by its principled support of Palestine, and placed the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation at the front of the Pride Parade. It also invited representatives from Jewish Voice for Peace and Vermonters for Justice in Palestine to speak at their rally. As a result, Pride became a sea of rainbow, trans, and Palestinian flags waving alongside one another in the gusting winds of global change. The Zionists’ time is over. The time for collective liberation is now.