National Geographic

At yesterday's meeting of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received 26 standing ovations during his speech to Congress today. Including when he got heckled.

JMG reader Eric tips us to this campaign from Israel: "In Israel you can get married only in one way -- the Jewish Orthodox way. Many Israelis want to get married in their way but can't!"

Pride Toronto hasn't even begun accepting applications to march in this year's parade, but already last year's controversy is back in the news.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is pulling out of Toronto’s annual Pride Parade in what the activist group called a “challenge” to mayor Rob Ford, who had threatened to cut the city’s funding to the parade because of the group’s continued participation. The Ford administration’s response? Prove the group is out, and we’ll provide funding. Mr. Ford and his allies on council had said they would cut Pride’s funding altogether if Queers Against Israeli Apartheid takes part. The group’s vocal opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories has elicited accusations of anti-Semitism, but some advocates argued the reluctance to fund Pride had more to do with the mayor’s stance toward a flamboyant gay and lesbian event. Pride relies on the city for about a quarter of its budget. Last year, the city gave the parade a $123,807 grant and $245,000 worth of services, such as litter cleanup and policing.

Transgender Israeli pop star Dana International won Eurovision 1998 with her single Diva, which went on to become a worldwide smash. This year she represents Israel again with the self-penned Ding Dong.

Earlier this week the NYC LGBT Center canceled a planned Israel Apartheid Week meeting after gay porn kingpin Michael Lucas threatened to have the Center's wealthy donors pull their support. Immediately after the event's cancellation, a petition went online with a demand that the Center not let "wealthy bigots censor free speech." Among the petition's sponsors are well-known activists Cleve Jones, Judith Butler, and Sherry Wolf of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

Today the Village Voice's Steven Thrasher interviews Wolf, who says it's an insult for her group to characterized as a "hate group" by a pornographer. (Snap!)

"More than half of [Siege Busters] is Jewish, and the others are mostly Arabs, and they call us anti-Semitic? Isn't the center a place where different people are supposed to meet and discuss? Shouldn't Jews and Arabs, gay and lesbian and transgender, working together towards peace be something that is celebrated? We cannot allow a wealthy porn entrepreneur to dictate what kind of speech is allowed, at a center whose very mission is to represent the oppressed and the marginalized!"

This just in from the Lucas camp:

We prevailed! Congratulations to everyone who stood with me in support of Israel. With your help it took only eight hours to accomplish our mission. The LGBT Center has decided it will not host the party by Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), scheduled for March 5th. According to an email I just received personally from Glennda Testone, executive director of New York's LGBT Center, it has been determined that “this event is not appropriate to be held at our LGBT Community Center." [snip] I stand with Israel for its right to defend itself, never to be exterminated again. Even if the entire world will think differently, I will not change my mind. I will always fight anti-Semitism in the world however it may try to hide.

"I'm preparing to organize a boycott that would certainly involve some of the [NYC LGBT] Center's most generous donors. It was an inexcusable decision on the Center's part to associate itself with a hate group like Israeli Apartheid Week, but there's still time for them to reverse course and begin restoring their reputation."

"At first I thought this was a joke. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that supports gay rights, while its enemies round up, torture, and condemn gay people to death -- often by publicly hanging or stoning them to death. If the LGBT Center wants to host a fundraising and awareness party for anti-semites, they might as well go all the way and host a tea dance for Fred Phelps." - Gay porn producer and actor Michael Lucas, in a press release announcing a boycott of the NYC LGBT Center.

Lucas, a GOProud supporter who pens anti-Arab/pro-Israel pieces for the Advocate, says that "anti-Zionism is new anti-Semitism."

He totally proves it with his chalkboard!

Potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says that everyone in Israel is terrified that Obama will abandon them too, just like he's doing with Hosni Mubarak.

Via Copyranter, the above is an ad from the National Association Of GLBT In Israel.