Anti-Israel protesters return to New York LGBT center
The Arab-Israeli conflict is popping up with growing frequency in Manhattan's gay community
It looks like Jayson Littman, the king of New York’s gay Jewish nightlife, was right.
As he predicted last month in this publication, the Arab-Israeli conflict is continuing to spill into the gay community in the US — at least at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in Manhattan’s West Village.
The LGBT Center was the site of a weekend protest against Israel by “an angry crowd of 150,” reports a post on the Daily Intel blog of New York Magazine. Carrying signs that read “Free Gaza, Solidarity with Palestinian queers” and “Destroying Palestinian villages: just not fabulous,” the demonstrators were taking aim not just at Israel, but at the center itself.
Like the Park Slope Food Coop in Brooklyn, the LGBT Center has become an unlikely proxy battleground in Middle East politics. As the Daily Intel article notes, pro-Palestinian groups have attempted to stage events at the center twice in the past year, and both times have been turned down. Some have linked those rejections to Michael Lucas, a gay porn mogul and Russian-born Jew who has threatened to organize a boycott of the center should it host anti-Israel activism.
Those who follow these things will not be surprised to learn that many of the past weekend’s protesters were Jewish. Presumably an interesting conversation would result if they cross paths with those who attended the LGBT reception at the just-concluded AIPAC Policy Conference.