Israel is not queer – The little coffee

Palestinian journalist criticizes country for using LGBT speech to legitimize genocide

Jad Salfiti, Palestinian journalist currently living in Berlin and London, wrote an article in The Guardian’s newspaper criticizing Israel’s attempt legitimizing his people’s genocide with statements that he defends LGBTQIAP+rights.

The country uses a narrative in which in Islamic lands, such as Palestine, the Queer community is oppressed by religion, while Israel has a legislation advocating for their rights. The invasion would therefore become liberation. Check out the full text:

Pride has never been apolitical, but in recent years, particularly after the Israeli occupation attack on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, the Queer Rights Coalition in the West has been increasingly fragmented.

In Berlin, a city that calls from home, pride events have divided over political lines, as Palestine has been a recurring point of discord. According to the organizers of the Internationalist Queer Pride Berlin (IQP Berlin), a division between two of the main alternative events of pride occurred after an incident in which the organizers called the police after participants expressed solidarity singing “Free Palestine” (Palestine Livre). Meanwhile, at the official chart of Berlin Pride, participants have marched with rainbow flags and Israeli flags next to an Israeli embassy float.

Last year, at IQP Berlin, the Palestinian block was one of the largest. Jews and Arabs marched side by side, wrapped in Palestinian Keffiyehs, escorted by the German police.

The event faced police repression, including agents in complete shock costumes, with cassettees and shields. At least 25 people were arrested, with the Palestinian block being one of the main targets of the police.

Despite these demonstrations of solidarity, and the risks of repression faced by protesters, there were those who moved the idea that people can find a common cause with Palestine and defend liberation. The best known example came last year, when the American pop star Chappell Roan criticized the Biden government by arming the Israeli army. On the stage of the Governor’s Ball festival in New York, the singer, who is a lesbian and has a Drag persona, refused an invitation from the White House to perform during the month of pride, saying, “We want freedom, justice and rights to everyone. When you do it, then I will.”

Roan’s solidarity gesture attracted the wrath of presenter Bill Maher, who suggested that the singer would be “thrown from a roof in Gaza”, summoning a frequently used cliche based on a video already denied by Reuters and AFP, among others.

He continued to make jokes about Roan’s career “explode” as the Pagers in Lebanon, referring to Israeli attacks that killed 12 people and wounded thousands. Hundreds of children died in the following months in Lebanon, and thousands in Gaza. Maher introduced himself as the liberal hero of people queer, but it seemed easier to him, as for many in the West, to point his finger at Palestinian society than to confront the systems his own countries support – systems that bombard, move and isolate Queer Palestinians in Gaza.

When Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Congress in July 2024, Israeli Prime Minister said that pro-Palestinian protesters holding posters saying “gays for Gaza” could well be called “chickens by KFC”, suggesting that our existence is marked by contradictions.

This attempt to break solidarity between people Queer and Palestine has been deadly. A year earlier, an Israeli soldier raised a pride flag in Gaza, with “in the name of love” written in English, Hebrew and Arabic. The official account of the State of Israel in the X (former Twitter) boast of the feat, saying it was “the first flag of pride already raised in Gaza.” As a Queer Palestinian, it is revolting to see my identity used as a war instrument, but what I find stranger is cognitive dissonance: in the name of the “love” of whom this flag was erected? Certainly not for the love of Queer Palestinians living in Gaza, who face 19 months of terror, and a lifetime under occupation.

In Jerusalem, a city where I was baptized, there is a very small and organic scene of Queer Palestinians. Some Palestinians even visit Tel Aviv for pride – if they are allowed to travel there. Most do not have. Queer Palestinians face different obstacles depending on where they live and how visible they are; Their pain live precariously under the cross fire of multiple struggles.

A friend in Gaza told me that he just wanted to live in peace, far from conservatism, religious extremism and war. Then I found that he lost his parents, his brother and some cousins ​​in Israel’s attacks. Another friend, from Jerusalem, told me that he had a message for the West: Freedom has many layers. “We are under occupation and facing continuous genocide,” he said. “So the first layer is simply to exist.”

We can imagine and wait for a fair and safe world where Palestinians may flourish. Although there are some vibrant, though more discreet communities, in various parts of the Middle East, there is still persecution. But if the goal is for Palestinians Queer to live in an open and tolerant society, then first they need to survive Israel’s aggression. There can be no pride under occupation.

There are LGBTQ+ Palestinian organizations such as Alqaws and Alwan with aspirations to shape a Palestinian society based on tolerance, equality and opening. An ambition that becomes much more difficult – if not impossible – due to occupation.

You can’t see rainbows under the rubble. Likewise, one cannot, with good conscience, celebrate pride in the West knowing that many of our countries are providing the weapons and money they are killing Queer Palestinians, along with their families. Despite attempts to position the struggle for queer rights as opposed to Palestinian liberation, I have been thrilled to see that people queer did not fall into this trap. This month of pride, we will march again, surrounded by confetti and keffiyehs.