At gay-pride events in Chicago, Washington, and New York, participants have been asked not to display Stars of David, or have been either expelled or harassed for doing so. Last summer, Blake Flayton, when planning to attend a similar event in Tel Aviv, was advised by an American friend not to advertise that he had been there—lest he be accused of “pinkwashing.” Flayton sees these and other incidents as evidence that the organized gay-rights movement has been hijacked by the anti-Israel cause, rendering it suspicious of Jews as such:

Considering the current state of the region and the policy mistakes of the recent past, David Pollock and Robert Satloff outline a strategy that is “both virtuous and realistic” for defending human rights and encouraging democratization in a region plagued by autocracy, chaos, and brutality. They argue that “in the long run, more democratic, tolerant, and inclusive governments are likely to be better at defending themselves, and more reliable and effective security partners for the United States.”