Pinkwashing

When used in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the word "pinkwashing" refers to Israel's putatively dishonest abuse of its sterling record on LGBT human rights to conceal or "whitewash" its struggles with the Palestinians. Alleged to constitute an invidious "cover up", pinkwashing actually represents a term of art deployed to deceive and fabricate fallacious arguments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It comprises part of the larger strategy of delegitimization of Israel by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which aims to isolate, de-normalize and, eventually, extirpate Israel as a democratic Jewish State. Despite the deceptive misuse of this term in this context, however, the word originated in other loci where it had different--as well as politically legitimate and rhetorically lucid--meanings. Here, Blackmer discusses the history of the term pinkwashing.