This summer a number of filmmakers slated to present new works at Out On Screen, Vancouver's queer film festival, either pulled out of the festival or wrote an open letter to organizers urging them to take a stand against the Brand Israel campaign. In the past few years the Israeli government and its supporters have been actively promoting the country as the only nation in the Middle East to support lesbian and gay rights, and advertising their beaches to the gay community as an ideal vacation spot. Across the west lesbians and gays have adamantly rejected this campaign on the grounds that the Israeli government is using gay and lesbian issues, and gays and lesbians themselves, to cover up or "pinkwash" their actions, deemed "criminal" by the United Nations, against Palestinians. In this talk, historian Elise Chenier offers an overview of the history of queer politics in the west to put the current movement of queers against Israeli apartheid in context.