Chicago Dyke March forced to remove anti-Israel ad

The image showed a woman holding burning Israeli and American flags and advocated violence against police.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The Chicago Dyke March (CDM) was forced to remove advertising last week for its later-postponed Saturday event that featured graphic anti-Semitic and anti-American elements following an uproar over the contents.

The cartoon, posted to the march’s Instagram account a week ago, depicted a woman holding burning American and Israeli flags. She was standing atop a police car in flames that was emblazoned with the initials of the march – CDM. In addition, across her backside were the letters “ACAB,” seemingly a reference to the catchphrase “All Cops Are Bastards.”

Jewish groups immediately slammed the image.

“Israel continues to be a safe haven for LGBTQ people around the world,” the American Jewish Committee (AJC) tweeted. “Meanwhile, the Chicago Dyke March continues to traffic in antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. Their despicable and hateful rhetoric must be denounced by all.”

Stop Antisemitism tweeted the names of 12 Middle Eastern and North African countries “where being gay is legally punishable by death” and called it “insanity at its finest” to vilify Israel and the U.S. instead.

The cartoon “further fans the flames of hatred and bigotry,” said a joint statement of the Anti-Defamation League Midwest and two local Jewish organizations. “It further inflicts harm on members of the LGBTQ+ community who ally or identify as Zionists, for whom a connection to Israel is part of their Jewish identity, and are seemingly being compelled to choose between important parts of their individual identities.”

Instagram removed the post for “hate speech or symbols.” CDM then changed the image to mostly cover the flags with orange flames, but asked its supporters to screen-capture the original and share it anyway.

The group eventually postponed their event altogether, with news reports citing October as a possible alternate date.

While posting to their Facebook account Saturday that the march was being “rescheduled due to weather and related concerns (access, safety, etc.),” CDM complained that the Jewish organizations had “slandered” them by labeling their “critique” of Israel and Zionism – calling it a “White Supremacist and settler colonial political ideology” – as anti-Semitism. They also hit back at Israel’s liberal policy toward gays as “pinkwashing.”

CDM doubled down on its support for the original poster, saying that the Israeli and American flags had been chosen as the symbols of “two violent settler-colonial states.” Reiterating their belief in intersectionality, they wrote that “queer and trans liberation cannot be extracted and isolated from broader liberation struggles,” specifically mentioning their “solidarity with the Palestinian cause.”

The implicit call for violence against Israel depicted in the poster was backed by another image shared on CDM’s Instagram account – that of playing cards with “Queers for Palestine” and “Zionism is queerphobic” written on them along with a hand holding a loaded rifle. They advertised that they had made 80 decks to hand out during their march.

This is not the first time CDM has come out against Israel.

In 2017 it banned ‘Jewish Pride’ flags with Stars of David on them, claiming it “made people feel unsafe,” as one organizer put it. Jewish participants were harassed and several were told to leave the event.

The Dyke marches take place in many cities separately from the general gay pride parades, with a focus on what its supporters call “social justice” rather than just support for LGBTQ+ rights.