🤥 Palestinians criminalize LGBTQ individuals and rights

The criminalization of LGBTQIA+ individuals and their rights does not provide grounds for apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Many U.S. states have criminalized abortions and transgender care; does that give other more progressive nations the right to occupy them?

As in every society (including Israel), there are conservative and repressive strains in Palestinian society. That said, there is a robust and active Palestinian LGBTQIA+ scene which focuses on dismantling the overarching oppression and discrimination of the occupation as a core part of their liberatory mission.

Let’s not pretend that all Western nations and societies are bastions for LGBTQIA+ rights. Does that give other states the right to occupy and ethnically cleanse their populations, too?

Palestinian activists from the LGBTQIA+ community have been clear and outspoken in their opposition to Israeli apartheid and the violence of occupation and siege in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, they have denounced Israel’s practice of “pinkwashing” whereby Israel tries to leverage its image as a “liberal” “gay-friendly” society to cover up for its crimes and human rights abuses against Palestinians.

This is part of a Zionist propaganda strategy that negatively exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image to detract attention from Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.

Israel routinely uses the sexuality of Palestinians to try to blackmail them or turn them into informants by threatening to expose them to disapproving family members. These practices by Israel are antithetical to queer liberation and further proof of Israel’s disregard for Palestinian life, regardless of sexual/gender identities.