Facing growing global outcry against its brutal occupation of Palestine Israel has launched a public relationship campaign to rebrand itself. It is spending considerable amount of money and resources to present itself as a safe-haven for gays and lesbians, as an anti-homophobic country. As part of that campaign Israel funds gay-themed films and sends these around the world, particularly aimed at audiences in the US, its biggest military and economic benefactor. Israeli consulates around the world fund gay/lesbian/trans activists to panels and seminars to promote Israel as a refuge for sexual minorities threatened by surrounding homophobic Arab countries.
The purpose of this is not to protect queers among the population controlled by Israel – after all queer Palestinians do not have a pink door in the apartheid walls that imprison them – but its primary goal is to rebrand the country as a tolerant one – to cover up the brutal repression suffered by Palestinians under the Apartheid regime.