Sorry, Prince, but I really question the timing on this post, in the midst of a brutal Israeli attack on Gaza, particularly with that headline and the celebration of gay inclusion in the Israeli military without any consideration of what that military does and is doing right this minute.

Witness: http://flipfloppingjoy.com/2008/12/27/witness/

Because I find most online (and offline, for that matter) discussions on this topic (not at Bilerico in particular -- everywhere) disheartening, frustrating, mostly futile, and etc., forgive me in advance for simply ducking in to say that and that's all. I don't have the heart or stamina to do a back-and-forth on this.

Can I ask for some space between full engagement on the larger Israel/Palestine conversation - which I really just do not have the heart to offer in this moment and space - and "post and dash"ing?

Because I do want to thank Prince for offering a gracious and thoughtful response. Thank you.

Also, to clarify: my problem with the post isn't that it covers Israeli sports, and I'm certainly not suggesting a Bilerico blackout on any nation or group or anything (ever, please); I simply question the timing of this particular post, and specifically with a headline that in this moment could easily be misread as leading to a post that *is* about the attack (in fact, that's what I expected to find when I saw the headline on Twitter and clicked over), followed by a lighthearted post that ultimately does discuss the Israeli military in a way I find insensitive at best, and also revealing of the disconnect that happens when we look at so-called gay issues in a vacuum, without connecting to other issues (in this case, celebrating gay inclusion in the military without being critical about the specific military or militarism more broadly).

Again, while I don't think there is a single answer to the journalism-ethics questions Prince has asked, and while in this case I'd have personally come to a different conclusion than Prince did, I very much appreciate the grace and forthrightness with which Prince has addressed the critique.

I, quite literally, just saw this post. And my responses are the same as Jessica's. I'm in shock over the last lines:
"By the way, did you know that gays can serve openly in the military in Israel? When will America finally catch up to the two dozen nations that allow gays some semblance of respect, at least when it comes to military service?"

I do have to say that the conversation here has been more civil than most but I have to wonder if some of that civility and somewhat naively articulated naivette isn't itself disingenuous to a degree. I can't help be struck by the extreme gentility that overcasts this conversation, and wonder what it says about what "we" as a community see as issues that we might have a stake in or not.

Prince, your constant iteration of the idea of "journalistic ethics" and Chris, the idea that some conversations do exist in a vacuum: both get away from the point of Jessica's points. The point is that once a conversation begins, it needs to engage with the responses it elicits and, Prince, you've tip-toed away from that role, but more on that below.

You can't title a post "Tel Aviv has balls" and then proceed to write a polyanna piece about how lovely it is that the Israeli army lets gays serve. And by can't I don't mean that you shouldn't, but that you can't do that and then frame it in the space between "would" and "should."

And that brings me to these words of yours which, I think, expose some disingenuousness or at least unconscious rhetorical slipperiness:

"For example, if the day after 9/11 happened, would it have been appropriate for me to write, say, a post about New York's wild gay nightlife? And if so, should it have been written devoid of the larger context of the 9/11 terrorist attacks? These larger journalistic issues do concern me."

Interesting, because you're actually asking the wrong question. The answer to "Would it have been appropriate etc.?" is, of course, "Well, no, now let's all think about that a little more." But, come on, you know this as well as the rest of us do: the real question is this: "Would I have written a post about NY's wild gay nightlife the day after 9/11?"

And I think we all know the answer to that one, regardless of our political affiliation: "Of course not." (that doesn't mean you shouldn't have, it just means that popular sentiment on all sides would have dictated an answer in the negative) But phrasing THAT question, "should I have?" would have forced you to confront the context of your post much more directly. Whereas phrasing it in the rhetoric of journalistic ethics and "would" rather than "should" allows you a lot of wiggle room. The more declarative "should" appears later, but by then it's in an ancilliary position to your "would." And the answer there is also, of course, no. The questions you pose are non-questions, or at least questions that disguise the real questions that should (yes, should) have been asked.

Here's another way of phrasing that: you can give yourself a pass for having written this post in a way you never could have if you'd written it about gay night-life right after 9/11. The reasons for that are myriad. For now, I think it's worth asking how a gay blog post about hot Israeli soldiers could be envisioned in the context of what's happening to Gaza when we would never envision something like that post-9/11 (Okay, the Advocate didn't mention the event for nearly three weeks after, and only after it was able to name gay people who'd died - but, puh-leeze, that's the Advocate, which barely acknowledges the sun's existence outside of gay life).

I think it's worth asking questions about the nationalistic rhetoric of gay identity. 9/11? Hey, you're talking about OUR COUNTRY, don't touch/taint itwith "light fare." The Israel-Palestine situation and a long historical trajectory whose numbers of dead far outnumber the number dead in 9/1? Yay for Israeli hotties and their balls!

I'm examining your words closely because I'm intrigued by the perhaps unconscious ways in which we think about some issues as being gayer than others, much more genteel, and not as incendiary as others. And so, I think, Jessica's point about gay issues in a vacuum still stands. We think about everything, from war to marriage, only inasmuch as we can find the LGBT bodies manifesting those issues. And once we find them, we're just so darn happy to see them that we conveniently forget the destruction they might bring. Gays in the military? Lovely, lovely, bring on the guns and the massacres and let's keep deluding ourselves about how "progressive" we are as a community. Yes, we can, we can march in anti-war rallies AND demand to serve to kill!! No contradictions there.

Let me be clear: the fact that the post is problematic to some (at least to me and, I suspect, to others) doesn't mean that it shouldn't have been written. As you point out, there's room for lighter fare. And I think there's room for different perspectives. But lighter fare/a different perspective in the context of these brutal attacks would at least announce itself as such.

In the end, I don't find it interesting to examine your motives per se. In a way, I'm glad your post exists because it proves what I've been saying and writing for a long time: when it comes to our identities as LGBT folk vs our interests as progressive/lefty folk, we choose our identities every single time.

Prince, this is a tough one for me, and timing is everything. Your piece was nicely written and would have been perfect any other week. The "Out Games" are a valuable message. Many months ago we had a piece provided by a Gay Israeli group promoting tourism to Israel.

I read the whole of it including the assertion of "our" rights in their country. My mind immediately went to the plight of Palestinians 80% of whom require food aid to survive.

I also know there are many flavors of Israelis including those (Orthodox) who would totally discriminate against us gladly if given the chance. We should not without care embrace a country just because it is hospitable to us when the true goal of the movement has always been about everyone's equality. Everyone's rights include learning the whole truth.

"The Israel Lobby and U.S.Foreign Policy" is written by a Jewish and Gentile pair of professors who are foreign policy experts.

And it still matters to me that Israel is the number one recipient of American Foreign Aid. They employ their own lobby groups in our congress, and the ammo they are using to kill is ours as a part of that foreign aid. Just because we like their present laws on Gay issues does not alter this reality for folks who are suffering at the hands of the same government.

Example: If Hitler were pro gay in attitude (and for years he was) and maintained this attitude throughout the Nazi period, and failed to kill Gay people along with Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and all other victims would he have been less atrocious? The answer is: of course not.

I know your heart is in the right place and you mean no ill will toward anyone. "...whenever I think of Israel I think of hot Israelis..." Not the first thing I think of at all.

This is a very dainty discussion for an article which has some grotesquely quotable lines. This article could very generously be described as ill-timed.

"The image of hunky Israeli soldiers making sweet love in the show is not easy to shake." The photos of little Palestinian children lying dead next to each other are a little harder, for me, to shake.

"But Tel Aviv is not quick to let sports eclipse everything -- which means...party!" Yeah some party a few miles away.

"I don't think any other sports involve shirtlessness or men grappling each other..." I've seen photos of men struggling to pull their brothers out of the wreckage of their offices.

Everybody knows the State of Israel is more tolerant of what we think of as Gay culture than the Islamic countries that surround it. But you know, so what. Is that it? Is that enough to buy our silence, for us to turn our eyes away, to buy our complicity? If there are gay Israelis--if there are gays among the Israelis lining up for the ground invasion of Gaza--then surely there are gays in Gaza--albeit with a vastly different culture and vastly different ethos of survival than our Euro-American gay culture. Do we turn a blind eye to the bombs falling on them?

All the discussions of race and class and culture are laid out here plain to see. I reject this "party" in Tel Aviv. It is complicit in the murder of innocents: some of them are your gay brothers and sisters too.

Yes, let's ignore the fact that many of you could submit guest/official contributions covering the "massacre" issue, instead of wanting this specialized article to cover every tangential issue that you feel like ranting about.

Let's make everyone cover what WE want to see covered; to hell with those who wish to dabble in other interests. It's all about the sanctimonious speeches, baby!

It was my decision when to publish it.

Honestly, I didn't think about it. It was early in the morning when the post got scheduled. I'd been mostly offline and not watching any news for the past few days and I'd been awake for about an hour.

I saw it a comment on the movie and nothing more or less. Prince didn't mention Gaza, any ongoing bloodbaths, Israel vs Palestine - none of it. He made a 3-5 sentence work in of an LGBT movie that featured Israelis since his topic was OUT Games.

Maybe it's just me, but I would have published a piece on LGBT nightlife in NYC after 9/11 too. Not everything has to be the news topic of the moment. As a few commenters have pointed out, that's the point of the Project. There's always something going on somewhere that we need to talk about.

And Prince's post has generated some interesting conversation. I think it was a worthwhile piece just because of that alone.

It’s not just the timing of this piece but it’s attempt to paint zionist society as some shining example of democracy. It’s not. It’s a western colony planted by military terrorism in the Middle East. It’s entire history is one of ethic cleansing and apartheid against indigenous people in Palestine.

The zionist idea of peace is to grab a piece of Lebanon, some Syria to chew on, with parts of Egypt and Jordan on the side and later a slice of Turkey. All their weapons including their nukes and rockets are supplied by the US and NATO. Washington supports them becasue they help the US divide and conquer.

For several days the IDF has been carrying out a full scale murder campaign against Palestinians. Hundreds are dead.

There’s no way to pretend to be agnostic in the conflict between Palestine and the zionists. Anyone can easily get all the information they need to quickly and figure out what’s going on and unless they’re zionists to begin with they’ll end up supporting the Palestinian struggle for national independence even if they oppose islamic homophobia or the tactics of this or that Palestinian group.

I certainly hope for the best for the civilian colonists trapped by zionist ideology and artificially sustained by the US. But the truth is that hey have precious little time left, and if they can’t force their government to make the same kind of accommodations the South Africans made to another 'terrorist' group, the ANC, they’re in for it.

When the US is forced out of the Middle East they’ll simply be brushed aside, nukes and all. The oil wars ended any illusions that people from Palestine to Pakistan might have had about the intentions of the US and its lapdogs in the IDF and created an unstoppable thirst for independence. Anyone standing in its way is in for a shock.

This attack is, as so many have noted, the worst attack on civilians since the 1948 terrorist Dier Yassin massacres that forced Palestinians to flee for their lives and created the zionist state. It will probably surpass the savage mass murders of Palestinian refugees, mostly old people and children in refugee camps engineered by Sharon. It’ll have very big implications for Obama’s ability to continue the Clinton/Bush oil war.

Obama hasn't criticized the zionist military for their murder of civilians and attempts to destroy Palestinian civil society. Nor has Bush. Here are two very good reports published today that explain why:
Israel's Onslaught: One of Its Bloodiest Attacks on Palestinians in 60 Years By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! Posted December 30, 2008. “Reports indicate that 350 people have been killed and 1,400 injured in the aerial strikes across the Gaza Strip since Saturday morning.” The story carries reports from Gaza, occupied Palestine and the US. Link to it here: http://www.alternet.org/audits/116115/israel%27s_onslaught%3A_one_of_its_bloodiest_attacks_on_palestinians_in_60_years/

Gary Leupp, Professor of History at Tufts and the author Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. published a new article today about the attack on Gaza entitled “The Fishbarrel War - Will Obama Sanctify Israel's Targeting of Civilians in Gaza?”
Here’s the link: http://www.counterpunch.com/leupp12302008.html