Businessman Joe Gersh says the Mardi Gras position on Israel ‘defies logic’

The organisers of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras accused of ‘endangering the inclusivity and universality’ of the event.

Businessman, Jewish leader and former ABC director Joe Gersh. Picture: Aaron Francis

Businessman, Jewish leader and former ABC director Joe Gersh has accused the organisers of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras of “endangering the inclusivity and universality” of the event, risking its funding, and “squandering the goodwill towards the festival that others have built up over ­decades”.

Mr Gersh, who is in a long-term same-sex partnership, has joined a chorus of LGBTIQA+ Jews – including prominent gay rights campaigners Kerryn Phelps and Jackie Stricker-Phelps – who have expressed their dismay at an open letter on the Israel-Hamas war ­issued last month by Mardi Gras chief executive Gil Beckwith. He said the letter purported to represent the views of the LGBTIQA+ community in relation to the Israel-Hamas conflict, but “it does not”.

“The preamble to the open letter, published on the Mardi Gras website, makes clear its motivation. The statement says in part ‘we are committed … to not accept(ing) … funding or donations … from organisations connected to … genocide’ or ‘which are complicit in the ongoing violence in Palestine’,” Mr Gersh said. “In context (to adopt the anti-Semites’ phrase du jour), the statement implies the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras will not accept donations from Jewish philanthropic organisations or others who support Israel’s right to exist, on the basis that they are ‘connected to genocide’.

The claim of genocide levelled against Israel is nothing short of a blood libel, ­unsupportable by the facts and an inversion of history. It is fundamentally flawed.

“Who elected this committee to conduct foreign policy on behalf of the LGBTQIA+ community, and who permitted them to squander the goodwill built up by Mardi Gras over decades in pursuit of their own political agenda?”

Mr Gersh also took issue with the letter’s failure to acknowledge the “unspeakable atrocities” committed by Hamas on October 7 – when 1200 people were killed in ­Israel, and 240 taken hostage – saying the omission “defies logic”.

“We all recognise the humanitarian imperative, and calls for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ may be well-meaning, but whilst Hamas remains in power in Gaza and retains the aim of the destruction of the Jewish state, such calls are at best misconceived,” he said.

“As is the failure to acknowledge that Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which a pride march equivalent to Mardi Gras occurs or is even possible. The open letter does not acknowledge the total denial of fundamental queer rights in Gaza or the Palestinian Territories.”

Mr Gersh said Mardi Gras was in its essence “a festival of diversity and inclusion”.

“There is no call for its committee to take partisan positions on issues outside its remit.

“Has it ever before? Making Jewish participants or sponsors feel unwelcome or unsafe is wrong, counter-productive and deeply offensive.

“For the Mardi Gras committee (or those who authorised the open letter and its preamble) to hijack Mardi Gras to serve their narrow, partisan and misconceived world view endangers not only the broad base of Mardi Gras support and the donations of significant philanthropic bodies, but also corporate and government support.

“Mardi Gras should unite, not divide,” Mr Gersh said.

Mardi Gras organisers did not respond to a request for comment.