Mideast Piece

The Middle East have been sexy longer than…
Well, this picture of fishermen at Eilat dates from 1951.

Yesterday’s Tel Aviv Pride was not at large as past years when some 200,000 would attend (quite large when one considers there are only 7 million Israelis!). Corporate sponsors - the mainstay of any Pride event - stayed away in droves because of the ultra-Orthodox community’s threat to boycott them if they supported the event.

When all was said and done, reports put the number of participants at 15,000, with 500 police officers and volunteers posted for protection. Several dozen right-wing activists were on hand to tell participants they are bringing disaster on Israel, blah blah blah.

The day began with a rally near the spot where Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin was murdered in 1995. I found this ironic because the same forces responsible for the incitement leading to his murder (ultra-Orthodox, anti-democratic extremists) also advocate for the murder of gays (i.e., reward posters in Jerusalem’s religious neighborhoods).

The parade itself was rather tame, and ended at the beach for a slightly less tame party. “I am wearing a girdle, and I haven’t been able to breathe for an hour and I’m almost suffocating,” said one participant who came from Paris to show off his Marie Antoinette costume.

Here are some photos of yesterday’s event, the largest Pride in the Middle East (kind of goes without saying, no?):

The Economist reported this week that it is becoming more difficult for gay Palestinians to find refuge in Israel and abroad. According to the report, because Israel is filling in the remaining open spaces in its security barrier/fence/wall it recently took a Palestinian drag performer seven hours to complete what should normally be a one hour journey from Ramallah to Tel Aviv.

The article relates that

One time, high heels and a wig saved Imad from prison. The 22-year-old from the West Bank capital, Ramallah, had been caught in Jerusalem without a permit. On the way to the jail, the police asked him and his friend why they had sneaked into town. As his friend shrivelled up with shame, Imad (not his real name) proudly told them he had come to perform at the Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay bar. He opened his bag and flourished his outfit with a bristle of sequins. The police, realising that they had caught a couple of drag queens instead of a couple of terrorists, let them go with a warning never to return. “And two days later,” recounts Imad with a gleam in his eye, “I was back, even in the same café where they arrested me.”

Today’s MEP Love Guide actually comes from a cute little book called The Gay Guy’s Guide to Love.

It suggests:

Don’t fall for these despicable, pernicious, malevolent, heinous, and generally wacko myths about gay love:

Myth: Gay love is wrong.
Reality: Love is love - gay, nongay, or in-between. Don’t let parents, priests, politicians, the press, or your psyche tell you differently.

Myth: Gay relationships threaten family values.
Reality: Gay couples ARE families who do or do not embody family values just like straight couples.

Myth: Gay relationships don’t last because homosexual men are constitutionally unable to coupel successfully.
Reality: One, plenty DO last. The world is filled with gay couples who have been together twenty, thirty, forty, or more years. Two, the only thing gay male couples are constitutionally unable to do the same as heterosexual couples is have babies.

According to the Jerusalem Post and contacts in the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, neither organization had anything to do with the recent uproar regarding an ad campaign designed to encourage gay travelers to visit the Holy Land.

From the Jpost article:

The Tourism Ministry released a statement Tuesday announcing that Israel isn’t seeking out gay travelers over other potential visitors - not, of course, that there’s anything wrong with that.

“The Tourism Ministry regards all segments of the population as equals, and therefore each group… receives the same treatment,” the press release said.

The release followed the publication Tuesday of a nearly two-page spread in Yediot Aharonot outlining efforts by the ministry to promote gay and lesbian tourism to Israel - a spread promoted on the newspaper’s front page with a large color photo and a magenta headline about the government’s campaign for a “Pink Jerusalem.”

The photos accompanying the spread are all a year and a half old, the ministry’s statement noted, and were taken as part of a previous campaign co-funded and initiated by the Tel Aviv Hotel Association. The ministry has “no connection” to the campaign described in the article, officials said, noting that none of the articles quoted a ministry representative.

Turns out that the video I posted yesterday features Oshri Cohen. (It’s written in the info with the clip but I wasn’t paying attention.) Oshri is an Israeli TV and movie star. I recently saw him in Beaufort. I’ll write more about that later…

Enough seriousness for a while. Here’s a cute boy break. Beach volleyball is popular in the Middle East.

Recently a media outlet in the Middle East had their readers vote for the best looking Middle Eastern men of the past. I’ll do a few posts and share the results with you.

According to the article, Mike Brant was born Moshe Brand and was the son of Holocaust survivors.

Mike was one of the chosen few who made it big in the international music scene. For the Israel of the mid-’70s, his look was considered impressive and glamorous. Brant introduced sex appeal to the puritan atmosphere of the kibbutz.

People still visit his grave despite the more than 30 years that have passed since he jumped to his death from the balcony of his Paris apartment in 1975.

And now for your French lesson of the day (Love the shirt!!!!):

Talk show host/goddess, Oprah Winfrey, pledged to visit to visit the Middle East during a recent speech. She was being honored by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity for her contribution to promoting humanitarian issues. Read more about Oprah’s trip to the ME here.

Oprah - send us an email! We’d love to meet up with you, girl, while you’re here!!! Oh - and BRING NATE!

Two young men meet by accident on a hot evening in Israel. One is Palestinian, ready to die for his beliefs in an attack planned for the next morning. The other is Israeli, lost in life after losing his whole family to terrorism and war.

Since you’re reading this plot description on Mideast Piece, you can assume these men are gay, and that they will either fall in love or fight a pitched battle for the duration of their lives. This is the story behind “Le Centiema Nom,” a film starring French-Arab actor Salim Kechiouche as the Palestinian ready to die for his beliefs.

Word on the street is that Salim is the hottest gay Arab actor around. Of course his gay-themed movies are French, because it’s not like the Arab world is hot on producing gay-themed films; however, Salim’s many films have made their way to the Middle East and - as Martha would say - it’s a good thing.

Here he is: