Letters to the editor

Context doesn’t reflect beliefs
In the article, “LGBTQ Agenda: Queer Jews upset at NYC Dyke March’s Israel stance [Online, April 17], I am correctly quoted as saying that I am “tired of them (i.e., Zionists) of weaponizing antisemitism,” yet the context following the quote that referred to a so-called Israel Hamas war is neither what I meant nor does it reflect my beliefs. I would never refer to the genocide in Gaza as a war. I believe it is a colonizing assault on Palestinian life, land, self-determination and liberation.

Palestinians, even prior to October 2023, have lived under a colonial military occupation that has violated international law, the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the permanent settlement of occupied lands, and all human rights. Palestinians have no rights; they are frequently arrested and administratively detained without charges or due process and are frequently tortured. The Palestinian prisoners are not called hostages, and yet there are thousands in jails whose fate is in the hands of the Israeli army and state. This is not a war; rather, it is state violence designed to remove all Palestinians from their homeland.

There has been an on-going Palestinian resistance to the Zionist occupation of Palestine, many of which are non-violent forms of resistance such as Boycott-Divest-Sanctions (BDS), to put international pressure on Israel to end the brutality of occupation. The Palestinian struggle against colonization has been a 77-year fight for their freedom and exists within a history of anti-colonial struggles, including in South Africa.

A critique of Israel’s policy as a colonial policy is not antisemitic. The weaponization of the claims that anyone critical of Zionism is antisemitic, leading to the arrest and disappearance of student protestors and the censorship of teachers, conflates Zionism and antisemitism. The claim that Zionism is anti-Jewish amounts to a denial that there is more than one Jewish narrative. For many of us our histories, our experiences as LGBTQ people who have experienced oppression, lead us to reject Zionism as a Jewish narrative or Jewish politics.

Carla Schick
Oakland, California

Supports NYC Dyke March’s stance
I’m writing in support of Carla Schick’s comments in your recent April 17 article “LGBTQ Agenda: Queer Jews upset at NYC Dyke March’s Israel stance,” who explained the necessity of taking a position supporting Palestine and opposing Zionism and the Israeli genocide.

As a decades-long Dyke March attendee and an anti-Zionist supporter of Palestine, I’m adding that I’m Jewish since Zionists continue to try to conflate criticism of Zionism with antisemitism (your article’s headline and much of its content went right along with that incorrect position). The true nature of the dangers of “exclusion” and censorship right now lie in students/faculty threatened with expulsion/firing/deportation for criticizing Israel, public school teachers and curriculum facing erasure for even mentioning the Israeli genocide in Gaza, and the larger (important in many ways) recent public demonstrations against U.S. fascism which refuse to include any mention of Palestine.

The NYC Dyke March has taken an important anti-Zionist position, a position that is political, NOT religious. I hope the SF Dyke March will also continue the long SF tradition of allying Dyke liberation with liberatory anti-colonial struggles of Dykes around the world in supporting Palestine.

Deni Asnis, Member
Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism
Pacifica, California

No news here
I just want to make sure I have this right, Matthew [Bajko]; is there really so little news in the LGBTQ+ world right now that you felt compelled to defame and embarrass someone from within our community who has volunteered – without pay – for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission for 14 years for missing annual recertification webinars [“Political Notebook: LGBTQ commissioners criticize SF ethics fines,” April 17]? What a catch!

Gary Weiss
San Francisco


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