This Week in Stupid: 'Queers for Palestine'

Regardless of your views on gay marriage, gay adoption and so on, I think we can all agree that Israel’s tolerant, liberal society is a much nicer place to live than the barbaric, oppressive, misogynistic and homophobic cultures that seem to spring up wherever radical Islam takes root, and particularly under Hamas in Gaza. After all, for over ten years, gay Palestinians have been fleeing their own country and settling in Tel Aviv, one of the most gay-friendly cities on the planet. 

In fact, friendly is an understatement. Israel is positively enthusiastic, as the only liberal democracy in the region, of underscoring its Western credentials and celebrating people of all backgrounds and preferences –provided they’re not insane militants who want to see the Jews scrubbed from the face of the earth, obviously. 

So you might imagine that gay Westerners, with an uncensored press and ready access to information about the torture and execution of homosexuals under administrations like Hamas’s, would be reluctant to support barbaric medieval homophobia. Surely they would feel a natural affinity to the permissive democracy in this conflict — not to mention how deliciously dreamy Israeli men are? 

Alas, not so. Witness the “Queers for Palestine” movement — a small group of homosexuals who have decided to support “Palestine” despite apparently knowing nothing about the history of this conflict, and despite the latter’s appalling human rights record and systematic persecution of homosexuals. Queer indeed. 

This is one of those times you catch sight of something or someone on the internet so mind-blowingly dumb, you need to do a few minutes’ research to make sure it’s not a wind-up. 

So this week’s prize for stupidity goes to the daft queens marching down their local High Street in support of a regime that wants them dead. Of course, some of the responsibility for this must lie with the BBC, Channel 4 and CNN — all of which downplay the ugliness of Islamist Palestinian society and ham up the suffering of its citizens to make Israel look like the bad guy. 

There’s even a conspiracy theory that Israel’s support for gay rights exists only to make the countries around it look bad. It’s called “pinkwashing,” and it’s an odd lie put about by brainless boobies who, despite the fact that if they ever actually went to the Middle East with their rainbow flags and terrible music they’d be lynched, support terrorists in Gaza no matter what against the evil Jewish state. Bitch, please. 

To be fair, the gays aren’t the only ones taken in. “Radical feminists” have also been spotted in London and elsewhere “showing solidarity” with their oppressed fellow human rights enthusiasts in Gaza. It’s almost too obvious a joke to make, but have these angry, spiky-haired four-foot Caledonian lesbians railing against Israel actually considered what their lives would be like if they’d been born in an Islamic country? 

Makes you laugh, doesn’t it? I’m happy to stump up for a plane ticket, incidentally, if one of these marchers wants to see for themselves how grateful the Islamist lunatics in Gaza are for the support of a load of preening, smug nancy-boys and their radfem mates. I wonder if any of them would actually be be brave enough to visit the culture they are so insistent on defending. Seriously, ladies. See if you can last twenty-four hours. 

So why is this happening? I don’t think it’s anti-Semitism. It’s just stupidity. Like most fashionable but ill-conceived Left-wing causes, the Free Palestine movement feels good and looks good and gets you applause from the right people. But it doesn’t stand up to intellectual or historical scrutiny–especially if you’re a marginalised group, likely to be persecuted under an Islamist regime. 

The conflict in Gaza has a complex historical etiology and takes time to educate yourself about, and to fully understand. You may well, after all that, conclude that your sympathies lie with the people of Gaza, who are not well represented by Hamas and who are suffering because Hamas insists on dirty tactics and have, over the course of months, provoked the much stronger and more technologically sophisticated Israel into brutal retaliation. Not quite my view, but you’d be entitled to hold it. 

But you don’t need to do much reading to conclude that, as a single-issue campaigner, whether gay, lesbian, feminist or transgender, there is only one side in this ugly war to support, if you care about the rights of gay people in the Middle East. Because, last time I checked, the vibrant, sassy, tolerant, sexy, liberal and welcoming place to be was Israel. 

This article is the first in a weekly series entitled ‘This Week in Stupid’