SIDING WITH ISRAEL IS NOT QUEER ALLYSHIP

Words by Caitlin Battye (she/her)

Let’s get this out the way to begin with: Israel is a genocidal, apartheid state. It is a colonial project and a military occupation that aims to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their rightful land.

As a gay woman, something I often hear when speaking out against the numerous crimes committed by the illegitimate state of Israel is that my existence would not be tolerated in Palestine, as if that should suddenly change my stance of opposing ethnic cleansing and apartheid. Proponents of Israel have often engaged in ‘pinkwashing’, in which they claim Israel is the arbiter of queer rights in the region and that anyone who cares for the queer community should support Israel.

This ‘pinkwashing’ relies on a variety of racist and Islamophobic tropes, and it uses queer rights as a shield against rightful criticisms of Israel. Any rights Israel affords to queer people are not extended to the queer Palestinians that have been displaced, caged, or killed by Israel. Focusing on some positive queer legislature in Israel does nothing but obfuscate from the countless violations of rights Israel conducts against all Palestinians of all genders and sexualities, violations conducted along racial, ethnic, and religious lines.

In recent times, we have seen an outpouring of Zionism on campus. We have seen claims that it is somehow anti-Semitic to criticise Israel or to recognise Israel as the violent colonial project it is, despite the fact that Judaism and Zionism are separate and that there are many, many Jewish people who also oppose Zionism. We have seen prominent people on campus, within our queer spaces, leap to defend Israel and condemn Palestine.

To them, I repeat words that have previously been uttered: For Palestine, there can be no ceasefire. As queer people, we must stand in solidarity with all other groups who are facing oppression and whose rights are being violated. Siding with Israel is not furthering queer rights - it is furthering the systematic oppression and violence conducted by the Israeli state, including that violence against queer Palestinians.

We must remain vigilant against all forms of oppression, and we must not divide our struggle and delude ourselves into thinking we can truly stand up for equality without being anti-racist and anti-colonial. Queer liberation does not occur in a vacuum, and Israel’s brand of queer rights is entirely conditional on the racial, ethnic and religious standing of said queer people.