For a gay high schooler living in the U.S., it is with extreme difficulty that I watch the American and Israeli governments exploit my sexual identity to excuse ongoing ethnic cleansing.

For a gay high schooler living in the U.S., it is with extreme difficulty that I watch the American and Israeli governments exploit my sexual identity to excuse ongoing ethnic cleansing.

The Progress Pride Flag was never intended to fly over the corpses of dead Palestinians. Like many queer young people today, I have watched with paralyzing anger as the symbol of our liberation waves atop armed Israeli killing machines and our existence is commodified as justification for Israel’s imperial violence. Israel has no right to wave any flag over the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Yet, for that flag to be colored with a rainbow is illustrative of the settler state’s incorrect, dangerous rationale for carrying out its ongoing genocide.

As Israel and its associated settler colonies market themselves as “gay havens,” they perpetuate the flip side narrative as well—that Palestinians are a barbaric and homophobic population of uncivilized heathens. The narrative itself is anerasure of Palestinian queer life and Israel’s oppression of LGBTQ residents. It ignores that Western colonialism has historically led to worse treatment of LGBTQ minorities in colonized regions. When the British claimed “Mandate Palestine” in 1920, they passed sweeping anti-gay legislation that still governs homosexual relationships in Gaza today. Throughout history, in the name of bringing civilization to Middle Eastern communities, colonialists have criminalized queerness and facilitated queer oppression.

Moreover, Israel itself has punished LGBTQ identities since the state’s birth. The current Netanyahu administration has positionedhomophobicleaders at the peaks of the Israeli government, refuses to legalize gay marriage, and faces rampant rates ofanti-LGBTQ sentiment in the country. Israel cannot be considered a pro-gay force for freedom as it continues the erasure of Palestinian queer life, facilitates an ongoing genocide, and furthers anti-queer lawmaking.

  • PugJesus@kbin.social
    62·
    1 year ago

    OK and who should I believe, some random dude on the internet saying “trust me bro” or Everett K. Rowson, American scholar and Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University? What I said comes straight from his mouth, so if you want to argue that point you’re welcome to send him an email. From his article, “HOMOSEXUALITY IN ISLAMIC LAW” (with further citations available in his bibliography):

    Everett K. Rowson also says that the Quran doesn’t have any rules against homosexuality, something which is easily disproven, so I don’t know that he’s trying to push a wholly honest narrative.

    Welp, you’re the one who brought up Muhammad bin Saud, not me.

    The only reason I brought him up, even in passing, was in quoting from your own source about the rise of Wahhabism and increased application of anti-homosexual Sharia rulings.

    Fair enough. Palestinians are also sure as shit not culturally Saudi Arabian, though, so why do you keep bringing that up?

    Literally the only reference I made to Saudi Arabia was to bin Saud in passing. with no reference to the country, only his support of Wahhabism and its subsequent spread as a response to you bringing up Saudi Arabia.

    Furthermore, I think you might need a reminder on where Damascus and Baghdad are located. Go find both of them on a map, draw a line between the two, and tell me if Palestine is anywhere near the area denoted by that line. Once again, you need to do your research before you post assertions online.

    My God, do I have to fucking explain to you the use of geographical comparisons in English?

    We’re done here.