Mardi Gras group Pride in Protest claims Zionist Jews are ‘proud of genocide’
A Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras offshoot group has accused Zionist Jews of being ‘proud of genocide’ and the ‘mass murder of children’.
A Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras offshoot group has accused Zionist Jews of being “proud of genocide” and the “mass murder of children”, hitting back at LGBTIQA+ Jewish group Dayenu, which earlier this month said it was reconsidering participating in this year’s Mardi Gras because of concerns about safety.
In a statement this week that has been condemned by a key Jewish leader as “intolerance and McCarthyism dressed up as purity”, Pride in Protest – some of whose members are on the Mardi Gras board – say conflating Zionism and Judaism was tantamount to “claiming all Jews are complicit in this massacre”, in reference to the Israel-Hamas war.
The comments come after a chorus of LGBTIQA+ Jews, including prominent gay rights campaigners Kerryn Phelps and Jackie Stricker-Phelps, and businessman, Jewish leader and former ABC director Joe Gersh, expressed dismay at an open letter on the war issued last month by Mardi Gras chief executive Gil Beckwith, which made no mention of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
“Mardi Gras is and should be a place to be proud of our sexualities, our genders, our bodies, and the fact that we are not only surviving but thriving as a community. It is not a place to be proud of genocide or the mass murder of children,” Pride in Protest said in its statement.
The group said Zionism – the movement in support of the right of the Jewish people to have a homeland in Israel – was “a right-wing extremist ideology that is distinct from Judaism”.
“When someone claims that being Jewish and being Zionist are the same thing, then they are claiming all Jews are complicit in this massacre. This assertion is deeply anti-Semitic and false,” Pride in Protest said.
If you are Jewish and wish to march in Mardi Gras without being pressured by Zionists to support genocide, then we welcome you to march with Pride in Protest. If Dayenu intends to withdraw from the parade because of a desire to support genocide, we encourage Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras to give their space to other Jewish groups who do not support an anti-trans and pro-genocide approach.”
Dayenu, which has had a float in the Mardi Gras every year since 2000, said this year’s march would take place “in a very different and more threatening context … Our pride has been turned into fear by groups like Pride in Protest whose vitriolic accusations have engendered hatred against Australian Jews and undermined the spirit of love and acceptance which has always characterised the Mardi Gras”.
“We are not a political organisation but we feel we have no choice but to speak out against the dangerous and hateful rhetoric of certain LGBTQIA+ groups like Pride in Protest,” ,” the group said.
“On 7 October, Hamas committed a massacre in which over 1200 men, women and children were brutally murdered, mutilated, tortured and raped. Over 250 were also kidnapped into Gaza, including elderly men and women and children. Over 130 hostages are still held by Hamas in Gaza, and there are credible reports that the hostages continue to be sexually abused while in captivity.
“We share a deep concern for the humanitarian impact of Israel’s defensive war against Hamas but recognise Israel has no choice but to prevent Hamas from being able to carry out a massacre like 7 October ever again.
“The fact Pride in Protest and other LGBTQIA+ groups would choose to support a Palestinian terrorist organisation which outlaws homosexuality and all other expressions of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow is extraordinary.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said it had become fashionable for “so-called progressives” to tell Jews ”who we are, where we belong and what we believe”.
“Zionism, the support for an independent Jewish homeland in the land from which we came, is a core part of Jewish identity, tradition and faith,” he said.
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