Queers for Palestine Explained

"A small group of anti-Israel protesters from a Florida chapter of Queers for Palestine blocked access to Walt Disney World Saturday," nypost.com reports, "and were promptly arrested. The keffiyeh-clad crew used their vehicles to block the Disney exit of Interstate 4 in Orlando, alleging that the company 'supports genocide.'"

Queers for Palestine makes as much sense as Jews for Holocaust. Lest we forget – Queers for Palestine certainly have – Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) both have a zero tolerance policy towards residents who fall under the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

With Friends Like This

By "zero tolerance" I mean they condone/encourage/ignore violent attacks, forced marriage, torture and homicide on those whose sexual or romantic predilections or practices defy the Mullahs' definition of acceptable.

The famous example: the 2016 torture and eventual execution of Mahmoud Ishtiwi. If Hamas was willing to kill one of their top leaders for the "crime" of homosexuality, how do you think LGBTQ+ Gazans further down the food chain fared? Are faring.

The situation is no better in the territories under Palestinian Liberation Army control. Sharia courts in the northern Gaza threaten homosexuals with death via stoning, burning and hanging, though maybe not sequentially or concomitantly.

Palestinians in northern Gaza suspected of homosexuality are considered "outlaws" who can be murdered by fellow civilians without consequence. No wonder then, that the PLA police kidnpa, beat and torture homosexuals with impunity.

The U.S. mainstream media is loathe to highlight LGBTQ+ "life" in Palestine. The MSM's knows it would draw attention to Hamas' record on human rights, casting the Palestinians and their chosen leaders as the bad guys, rather than victims.

The New York Post article on the Disneyland protest doesn't even mention it. Wikipedia's entry LGBT rights in the State of Palestine focuses heavily on Palestinian LGTBQ+ identifiers' theoretical legal rights, and Israel's treatment of gay and lesbian Palestinian refugees.

Just so we're clear on the difference between Palestine and Israel on this issue, Equaldex's LGBTQ+ Equality Index ranks Palestine #190 out of 197 countries. Israel ranks forty-eighth, despite being the the only Middle Eastern nation that recognizes same-sex unions, for example.

LGBTQ+ QFP WTF?

And you may ask yourself, well, how did we get here? How in the world does such a thing as Queers for Palestine even exist?

How can the QFP reconcile their hatred of Israel and acceptance of Hamas when Israel accepts them and Hamas and the PLA hate them? Simple: rebrand Israeli tolerance of LGBTQ+ rights "pinkwashing."

No, the QFP isn't accusing the Jewish State of using the Pinkerbell's laundry routine. The QFP-approved definition is way more ridiculous than that.

Pinkwashing is an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians. 

For decades, Israel’s colonial and apartheid regime has robbed, oppressed, ethnically cleansed, impoverished, imprisoned and killed Palestinians, queer and non-queer alike. - bdsmovement.net

Unless you've completely lost the ability to tell right from wrong, that is some serious pretzel logic.

To perpetuate this preposterous proposition, Queers for Palestinian must dismiss any and all evidence of LGBTQ+ legal, cultural or commercial tolerance within the Jewish State. And so...

Israeli travel guides and promotional videos advertise Tel Aviv beaches as a gay-friendly getaway destination—and hide the reality that tourist partygoers are dancing atop the ruins of ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages.

The open inclusion of gay officers in the Israeli occupation army is used as proof of liberal forward-mindedness, but for Palestinians the sexuality of the soldier at a checkpoint makes little difference. They all wield the same guns, wear the same boots, and maintain the same colonial regime. - alqaws.org

Let Me See If I've Got This Straight (So To Speak)

As far as I can tell, Queers for Palestine operates on the basis of a fairly complicated not-to-say-entirely-convoluted principle: we hate our friends and love our enemies because our friends are enemies of our enemies, who hate us now but might not hate us after we save them from our friends.

I almost feel sorry for the American LGBTQ+ community, which includes a fair few Jews. The pro-Hamas protests put them between Iraq and a hard place.

With all their domestic allies going off the deep end defending Hamas, the Queer community couldn't very well tell their fellow travelers fuck no. We're not supporting a terrorist regime that makes America's bible belt look like the LGBQT+ Promised Land.

So instead the LGBTQ+ community turned themselves into useful idiots for useful idiots. Win - win?

Dr. Faust Need Apply

The LGBTQ+ community gets a major benefit from QFP's existence. Specifically, solidarity with the wider, media-friendly pro-Hamas movement.

The alliance assures the LGBTQ+ movement continued financial support and a place on the front lines of the PC protest du jour.

If QFP members have to abandon logic, common sense and credibility to stay in the liberal loop, so be it. What's the downside? Who's calling them out?

As always on the left, the ends justify the means. A little self-delusion, a pinch of obfuscation, a soupçon of semantic jujitsu, and Disneyland here we come! All four of us.

The pro-Hamas antisemites get a major benefit from the existence of Queers for Palestine: protecting from serious scrutiny of Hamas' human rights record.

After all, when it comes to human rights, progressives and their social justice warrior shock troops consider the LGBTQ+ community the queer canary in the coal mine. If they're persecuted, no one is safe!

Well they are persecuted in Gaza. And how. So no one in Gaza is safe. Especially anyone who identifies as... a Jew.

'

Yes, there is that. Too bad the left no longer considers Jews a protected minority. If they ever did. Now there's a queer thought. Or, in this case, not.