Since the genocide in Gaza began, I have found myself having the same argument over and over again. Because I am gay, my interlocutors tell me, I should support Israel. I find this deeply troubling, not least because it assumes that my sexuality should somehow determine my politics.
Do not patronise me. Do not tell me that because I am gay I should support occupation. Do not use the discrimination people like me may experience in our societies to decide which people’s suffering I am permitted to oppose. And do not turn my struggle into a public-relations argument for another oppressive political project.
My rights are not yours to weaponise. This is my battle. The struggle for LGBT rights in the Middle East belongs first and foremost to the people living it. My position is clear: I do not need Palestinians to accept my sexuality before I recognise their humanity.
The argument often begins with 7 October. For many defenders of Israel, that is where the story begins: Hamas attacked Israel, Israel responded, and everything that followed is understood through that single sequence of events.
But history did not begin on 7 October 2023. Before that morning, there was the occupation of the West Bank. There were settlements and settler violence. There was the blockade of Gaza. There were military operations, displacement, restrictions on movement, and generations of Palestinians who had grown up knowing little else.
It is when I try to bring that irrefutable history into the conversation that the discussion stops being about Palestine. It becomes about me. “Do you know what would happen to you in Gaza?” I am asked.
Sometimes the argument is even more explicit: Hamas would persecute you. Palestinians would never accept you. Israel, meanwhile, is presented as the only place in the Middle East where someone like me could live freely as a gay man. Therefore, apparently, I should support Israel.
I have no illusions about the challenges LGBT people can face in Palestinian society or elsewhere in the Middle East. Queer people across the region can experience rejection, discrimination, stigma, and, in some countries, legal persecution. I know that reality. I live within it, and confronting it is part of my own struggle.
But it does not make a Palestinian life less valuable. Nor does opposing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians mean supporting Hamas. These are not interchangeable positions, however often they are presented as such.
Certainly not solidarity
The invocation of Israel’s record on LGBT rights to silence criticism of its oppression of Palestinians is disingenuous.
Israel, and Tel Aviv in particular, has for years promoted an international image of itself as LGBT-friendly in a largely conservative region. And not everything about that image is false. Same-sex couples in Israel have obtained significant legal recognition and rights that remain unavailable in many parts of the region.
I have no reason to deny that. What I question is what happens when those rights become something else – a public-relations instrument used to establish moral superiority over Palestinians.
Critics have called this “pinkwashing” – using Israel’s comparatively progressive record on LGBT rights to present the country as liberal, modern, and tolerant while diverting attention from its treatment of Palestinians.
The contradiction becomes even more uncomfortable when one considers testimony from former members of Israel’s own intelligence services.
In 2014, veterans and reservists of Unit 8200, Israel’s elite signals intelligence unit, publicly objected to aspects of surveillance conducted against Palestinians. Former personnel described the collection of intensely private information that could be used as leverage in attempts to recruit collaborators. Among the vulnerabilities they said intelligence officers looked for were financial difficulties, medical needs, extramarital relationships – and sexual orientation.
One former soldier recalled that intelligence trainees were even taught different Arabic words for “gay”.
” I do not want Israel – or anyone defending its policies – to tell me what my sexuality requires me to believe. “
There is a disturbing contradiction here. As a gay Middle Eastern man, I may encounter rejection and discrimination within my own society, only to be told by Israel and its supporters, “Look, these people do not accept you”.
Yet, according to testimony from former Israeli intelligence personnel, the very stigma surrounding homosexuality has also been regarded as a vulnerability that could be exploited against Palestinians.
That is not liberation. And it is certainly not solidarity. Which brings me to something more personal: I do not want Israel – or anyone defending its policies – to tell me what my sexuality requires me to believe.
The struggle belongs to us
Queer people in Europe and elsewhere were not simply handed their rights because their societies were inherently enlightened. Those rights were fought for. Generations of LGBT people were criminalised, imprisoned, humiliated, dismissed from their jobs, rejected by their families, and subjected to violence. People organised. They marched. They challenged laws. They confronted governments, religious institutions, and social conventions.
Rights that now appear inevitable were once considered impossible. Queer Arabs and queer Palestinians, too, have a struggle ahead of us. We will continue to confront homophobia within our families, our societies, our laws, and our institutions.
It may take generations. But that struggle belongs to us. I do not need an occupying power to fight it for me. And I certainly do not want my struggle for equality to be used to justify the denial of somebody else’s rights.
” Human rights are not a reward we give to people whose religion we approve of, whose politics resemble ours, or whose values mirror our own. If they were, they would cease to be human rights at all. They would be privileges. “
I can demand dignity for LGBT people in Arab societies while also demanding dignity for Palestinians. I can oppose homophobia and occupation at the same time. I can condemn Hamas without accepting the killing of Palestinian civilians. I can want a Palestinian society in which a gay man can live openly and without fear while also wanting Palestinians to live without occupation, displacement, and violence.
There is no contradiction in that. The contradiction appears only if human rights are treated as something transactional. Human rights are not a reward we give to people whose religion we approve of, whose politics resemble ours, or whose values mirror our own. If they were, they would cease to be human rights at all. They would be privileges.
If I believe in human rights only for people who would extend those same rights to me, then I do not really believe in human rights.
So, when someone asks me again how I can defend Palestinian rights when some Palestinians might deny mine, my answer is simple: I do not need Palestinians to love me, I do not need them to accept my sexuality, share my values, or fight for my rights before I can defend theirs.
I want them to. I hope one day they will. But until then, their lives do not become less valuable.
This article is republished from thenewhumanitarian under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Jordanian-Palestinian writer and humanitarian communications professional
