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By Guest Post • May 6th, 2009 at 13:21 • Category: Analysis, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, War, Zionism
Israel is so worried about the International community's willingness to talk to Iran before bombing it that they are launching a new "bomb-before-you-talk" public "relations" campaign.Gay rights in Iran are at the center of this public "tarnation" campaign. Israel is planning to use Iran's treatment of its homosexuals to convince the world that Iran deserves to be bombed to smithereens. They are planning to recruit western gay rights activists to do their propaganda for them, according to this report in Ha'aretz.
This is bad news for homosexuals in Iran and for those who care about them.
Ask the women of Afghanistan. Not long ago, they were mobilized for another public relations campaign that wanted to sell the war on Afghanistan to every American household. This is when CNN, Fox, and Oprah discovered Afghani women and were so moved by their plight that they decided to bomb them to free them from their misery. And look at the result! The Afghani government that was produced by years of war has just decided that a husband has the legal right to have sex with his wife every four days. No ifs, buts or headaches are acceptable. In other words, the Afghani constitution legalizes marital rape now. Afghani women, those who survived the bombing, had taken to the streets to protest this new legislation and were pelted with stones for their immodesty. But, hey, stones are better than bombs. So there is progress after all.
You can also ask the gays of Iraq, who have been tortured and assassinated by one militia or another after years of mayhem that brought them a new "democracy." And while you are at it, talk to the women, those who are starved, raped, sold, and beheaded in the new Iraq.
The lesson from Afghanistan (and Iraq, and Gaza, and wherever the bombs are falling) is that bombing a country does not improve human rights in that country. Bombs do not make progress. In fact, the weakest groups will be the ones to suffer most: the poor, children, women, gays, minorities. They will pay the heaviest price of war and militarization. Even if war does not take place, using gays in Iran as pawn in the war rhetoric will increase their vulnerability to violence and prejudice.
Israel knows this very well. But it doesn't give a damn about Iranian gays. It's on the war path.
But for those of us who do give a damn, our work has just got harder. International LGBT groups must distance themselves from the Israeli agenda because it is the kiss of death for Iranian gays. And we all must find ways to continue to advocate for human rights and at the same time expose the cynical manipulation of these rights by politicians and generals.
It is the only way.
I am also the author of “Improvisations: Arab Woman Progressive Voice,” a blog about Arab women, Palestine, and cultural politics.
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