Like South Africa twenty-five years ago, Israel today portrays itself as a progressive liberal democracy, an endangered island of modernity in a backward and hostile region. The existence of a gay rights movement in Israel is deployed as another example of this modernity. I think that these similarities tell us a great deal, that they actually reveal the underlying process that they are designed to obscure—a common colonial project.

At the time of writing we were informed that Pride Toronto had banned Queers Against Israeli Apartheid from participating in this summer’s Toronto Pride March. Capitulating to Israel lobby groups and to City Hall threats to withdraw funding if the group marched, the board of Toronto Pride has chosen to set a dangerous precedent by censoring a community human rights group. We are thinking about the impact of QuAIA on queer movements, queer politics, and where the “movement” is now.