The New York City-based Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center
announced on Thursday an immediate “moratorium” on renting space at its West
Village headquarters to “groups that organize around the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.”
The LGBT center has been engulfed in a week-long controversy
over its decision to rent space to the anti-Israel group Queers Against Israeli
Apartheid.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center and leading US gays blasted QAIA
for stoking modern anti- Semitism and whitewashing rampant Arab
homophobia.
In less than 24 hours after
The Jerusalem Post reported on
Wednesday about criticisms leveled against QAIA, Cindi Creager, the center’s
director of communications and marketing, issued a statement via email to the
Post.
“The center has been forced to divert significant resources from
its primary purpose of providing programming and services to instead navigating
between opposing positions involving the Middle East conflict,” she
said.
“The center, which does not endorse the views of groups to whom it
rents space and requires all groups to sign a non-discrimination pledge, has
decided to implement this moratorium to allow a cooling off
period.”
Executive Director Glennda Testone said in the statement, “We
must keep our focus squarely on providing lifechanging and life-saving programs
and services to the LGBTQ community in New York City.
“We respect those
who are deeply passionate about these issues, and we respectfully ask that they
take meetings outside of the center. Make no mistake, everyone is welcome at the
center; but these particular organizing activities need to take place
elsewhere.”
The public row over the 28- year-old center providing space
to anti-Israeli groups has electrified supporters and opponents of Israel in New
York City’s LGBT community.
Stuart Appelbaum, the openly gay head of the
New Yorkbased department store Union and president of the Jewish Labor
Committee, applauded the center for denying QAIA space to meet.
“The
center had no business in hosting a group of anti- Zionist racists and their
‘Zionism equals Apartheid’ materials,” he told the Post on
Thursday.
Groups like QAIA, “who do not share progressive values like
opposition to racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia or anti-Semitism, do not
belong in the LGBT Center,” since they ignore “the homophobia and cruel
punishment inflicted on gays and the denial of basic human rights of women which
are endemic throughout the Middle East.”
QAIA issued a statement on
Friday, in which it accused the center of succumbing under pressure to ban
groups who oppose Israeli occupation by “the pro-Israel lobby, including some
wealthy and powerful queers” as well as to pressure from “the queer progressive
community to keep the center open.”
The statement, which appears on the
website “Queers for an Open LGBT Center,” said the center has banned groups
working in support of LGBT Palestinians’ “demand for an end to Israel’s
occupation as a critical step in achieving their civil and human rights. It has
only responded to demands for openness by frantically slamming the door. And it
has fully complied with the highly political demand of right wing pro-Israel
groups that it shut out Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.”
Mario Palumbo,
president of the center’s board, said on Thursday, “We have tried in good faith
to weigh each space request while considering the deeply held beliefs of members
of our community about these issues. But we are first and foremost a community
services center and need to ensure that all individuals in our community feel
welcome to come through our doors and get what they need to live healthy, happy
lives. This must be our priority.”
Michael Lucas, a columnist for the The
Advocate, told the Post on Thursday, “we have prevailed in the fight against
anti-Semitism yet again. The LGBT Center of New York City overturned their own
decision to allow another anti-Israeli group to be hosted on their
premises.”
Lucas said the center has twice given space to anti-Israeli
groups.
According to observers of the dispute, Lucas played a crucial
role in waging the campaign against the center furnishing anti-Israel groups,
including Siege Busters and QAIA, with space to organize activities.