Israel-bashers love to accuse the Jewish state of “pinkwashing” — touting its flourishing gay communities to distract from its policies toward the Palestinians.
It’s a ridiculous charge, since Israel is indeed a fountain of tolerance — particularly compared to surrounding nations.
As is seen yet again in the story of Payam Feili, 30 — a gay poet forced to flee his native Iran who’s now taken asylum in Tel Aviv.
Iran has a clear policy on homosexuality: It’s illegal — and violators can be executed.
Feili’s first book of poems was published in Iran but heavily censored; later collections have been published only abroad.
He was arrested three times in four years. In one detention, according to the PEN American Center, he was held blindfolded in a shipping container for 44 days and tortured.
“The more I gained a reputation outside Iran,” he says, “the harder it became for me to live in Iran.” The Iranian press vilified him and friends began to shun him.
He fled to Turkey in 2014 but soon chose to go to Israel, a nation he says has fascinated him since his youth — but which his Iranian passport identifies as “occupied Palestine.”
So now he’s living in Tel Aviv, which has become a gay mecca (to coin a phrase) for the whole region: It even attracts young gays from the West Bank — whose society is not just less tolerant, but violently intolerant.
Feili is free to march for Gay Pride, read gay publications and attend gay-themed theater, despite Orthodox Jews’ opposition.
And to live openly and freely with no fear of imprisonment or execution merely for being open about his identity.
Shame on Israel’s enemies in the West for their drive to deny this fundamental truth.