By Toby Clarke
“In the nation of Israel, people can live freely and love freely, Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where you can have a pride march”. These are the words of Micheal Gove, a senior conservative MP and longstanding ally of the Israeli state. Gove, like much of the political class, is attempting to ally Israel with a seemingly progressive international order, an order which argues that social progress can only be sustained if the geo-strategic interests of the West are upheld. Gove’s pinkwashing serves another purpose, In labelling the Arab world as inherently Queerphobic, he relegates Palestinians to a subclass of humanity, a backwards people undeserving of common compassion, and perversely, deserving of their collective punishment. With little room for resistance and a dearth of international solidarity, Queer Palestinians have used social media as a means of halting their erasure.
Following the onset of Israel’s onslaught in Gaza, Queering the Map began to trend across social media. The platform archives queer voices about their physical space, with anonymous posts detailing the multiplicity of queer life, some messages recount the euphoria of a first queer kiss, whilst others recount heartbreaking tales of lost love. Despite the app’s relative longevity (the platform was first founded in 2017), Queering The Map had remained seemingly unknown. In the shadow of Israel’s bombardment, the Gazan portion of the map lit up with messages of longing, loss, and solidarity. Many posts geo-located within the Gaza strip, expressed sentiment of defiant resistance, one such message from the Nuseirat Refugee camp (a target for Israeli airstrikes) read “In solidarity with all my Palestinian brothers and sisters, you are loved. Free Palestine!”. Other more heartbreaking posts, expressed melancholy for a love that could have been, and now, will never be.
“I’ve always imagined you and me sitting out in the sun, hand and hand, free at last. We spoke of all the places we would go if we could. Yet, you are gone now, if I had known that the bombs raining down on us would take you from me, I would have gladly told the world how I adored you more than anything – I’m sorry I was a coward”.
Undoubtedly, much of the global south holds values that are hostile to queerness, throughout much of the Arab world, homosexuality is punishable by death. Yet, it would be intellectually dishonest for us to ignore the root of queerphobia. Historically, the global south had been comfortable with non-heteronormativity, and social change arrived with the onset of Western imperialism. Economic and territorial dominance was paired with the imposition of heteronormativity and an illiberal social order that othered sexual difference.
Irrespective of the Arab world’s queer politics, ideological differences can never justify the horrors inflicted on Palestine. In demanding the Palestinians reflect our societal view of heteronormativity, we reduce them to what Mohamed Al-Kurd, a prominent Palestinian activist, calls “perfect victims”. According to Al-Kurd, our humanity is only extended to those who fit our model of victimhood, Palestinians must be “docile, defanged, and preferably with an American accent”, and even then, our humanity is limited to “words of solidarity”. Despite its emotional significance, Queering the Map feeds this narrative of “the perfect victim”. The Palestinian struggle is decades old, and yet, many only began to conceive of its horror when they could code it as a user. Suffering for suffering’s sake has never been enough for the West, for too many, Palestinian pain has to look and feel Western – the anguish requires a familiar face.
Following the October 7 2024 attack on Israel, a widely shared post argued that those in favour of “Human rights, women’s rights, and gay rights were natural allies of Israel – they just didn’t know it yet”. Perversely, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza isn’t coded by sexuality, creed, or colour, to the missiles of the IDF, all Gazans are fair game. Queering the Map goes some way to revealing the lived experience of the Gaza Strip. Palestinians, like all people, are diverse. They’re straight, gay, trans, progressive, conservative, and often – imperfect.
Successful social movements in the West have always been coalitions. The miners who fought Thatcher in the 80’s walked arm in arm with gay men fighting for the eradication of HIV, Irish revolutionaries stood in solidarity with black communities who demanded racial equality. These coalitions were far from harmonious, but they recognised that their voices were louder together, why should Palestinian solidarity be any different? A commonly chanted phrase at protests is “Their liberation is our liberation”. This liberation cannot become conditional, if we really want to advocate for universal human rights, we have to do so without exception, no matter who we are arguing for. So, if you’re in favour of human rights, women’s rights, and gay rights, you’re an ally of Palestine – you just don’t know it yet.
Toby Clarke is a London-based student and Journalist studying MA in Cultural and Creative Industries at King’s College London. Clarke previously served as the editor-in-chief of The SOAS Spirit, where his articles covered topics related to migration, social housing, and political corruption. Now a staff writer at GAY45, Clarke’s articles aim to tackle these same issues and their intersection with Queerness.
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