After a week of controversy and competing op-eds at Stanford, a documentary screening about gays in Israel produced another critical opinion piece in the Daily.
Laura Rumpf reports that showing “Out of the Closet and into the Streets of Tel Aviv” was an effort to take a more positive look at Middle East issues:

[Stanford Israel Alliance President Mishan] Araujo expressed concern that Stanford students are bombarded with a singularly negative impression of Israel, especially with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict receiving considerable attention on campus recently.
“When students think about Israel they think about war, controversy and the desert, when there are so many positive things going on in Israel,” she said. “LGBT rights is just one of these things.”

Senior Jerry Zee is not impressed.

I would like to point out that the rhetoric of queer rights is being appropriated and used instrumentally by the producers and screeners of this film in a way that justifies violence, occupation and oppression. Queer Israel is presented as liberated and modern, in explicit contrast to the supposed barbarism of the Middle East. The doctrine of the queer movement that stresses freedom and openness is being used to justify Israel’s claims to statehood while at the same time demonizing the Arab other as backward.
[…]
As a member of the queer community, I am angry at the use of our liberatory rhetoric to justify exactly the opposite of liberation. I hope, from now on, that the line between education and propaganda will not be so shamelessly flouted for politicized ends.

The above picture of the screening was taken by Daily photographer John Shen.