Palestinian rights group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid is shutting itself down after seven years of activism and controversy.

Tim McCaskell, one of the group’s organizers, announced in a news release Thursday that QuAIA will “officially retire” at the end of this month.

The group educated Canadians about the Israeli “occupation”, popularized the terms “Israeli apartheid” and “pinkwashing” and inspired QuAIA groups in queer communities around the world,” he said.

But deteriorating Middle East conditions and Canada’s attempts to “suppress” boycott, divestment and sanction efforts “pulled activist energies in many directions,” and QuAIA members to other groups and cities.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” McCaskell said. “But we decided that retiring QuAIA allows us all to develop new strategies for supporting the Palestine solidarity movement and to make new links across oppressions in our communities.”

Avi Benlolo, chief executive of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies, and a past critic of what he called a “fringe group”, welcomed QuAIA’s decision but doubted the stated reason.

“It’s quite obvious that they would lose momentum,” Benlolo said.” With extremist massacres in Syria, ISIS going around cutting people’s heads off, Iran executing gays ... why would anybody be going after Israel with its pride parades in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?”

QuAIA formed in 2008 during Israeli Apartheid Week at the U of T amid concerns Israel was using “gay rights to divert international attention away from the state’s violation of Palestinian human rights,” McCaskell said.

“The small activist group was propelled into international celebrity after the pro-Israel lobby attempted to have Pride Toronto’s funding revoked in order to silence Palestine solidarity voices at the 2010 festival.”

Pro-Israel groups and Toronto council members called “apartheid” dishonest, hurtful and hate speech, and tried to force Pride to eject QuAIA from the parade or risk loss of grants totalling more than $150,000.

But city manager Joe Pennachetti concluded in 2011 that “there is no legal precedent” to suggest the phrase “Israeli apartheid” constitutes a hate crime or a violation of the provincial human rights code.

City solicitor Anna Kinastowski told council in 2013 the phrase appears to be legally “protected speech” and does not violate the city's human rights policy.

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Last September, then-mayoral candidate John Tory seemed to rekindle the debate by saying Pride should be denied funding if QuAIA marched.