They keep trying to use queer people as an excuse for Israel's genocide. It’s a nonsense notion.

Nearly every day of this genocide, I have heard some variation on these words: "See how long you last in Gaza.”

These days, I have very little appetite to write about queer rights in Palestine.

I am, of course, a queer Palestinian, and I have campaigned for both queer and Palestinian rights for my entire adult life. Like many queer activists, I have faced real and threatened violence for my work. And the threats keep coming.

Nearly every day of this genocide, I have heard some variation on these words: “See how long you last in Gaza.”

This is the kind of indulgent violent fantasy dreamed up by people like Jackie Stricker-Phelps, when she claims anti-genocide activists are “advocating for a culture where they would not last five minutes as an out and proud gay or lesbian person”.

These utterances come both from far-right ideologues who have absolutely no interest in the well-being of real queer people, and from progressives in the vein of Julie McCrossin, who bemoans “the failure of Sydney Mardi Gras to mention the violence within Gaza and the West Bank towards gay people”.

She finds herself in the company of Rowan Dean, who praised former Victorian Premier Dan Andrews for his claim that “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East where they [have] gay rights.”

This is the same bloke who thinks Pride Month is a propaganda effort to transition your children.

Meanwhile, you have Menzies Research Centre’s Nick Cater, who warns against “the disingenuity of transgender activism” and who had a breakdown over the Sea Eagles’ pride jersey, lamenting the absence of a “gay and lesbian Mardi Gras” in Gaza. Square that circle.

This is part of why I find this topic so infuriating to write about. How can anyone take this seriously? Why do I even have to write about this? Are you fucking stupid? You can dispel this self-evident tripe just by looking at it.

And yet, somehow, 8 months into a genocide, I am still trying to explain to people in the queer community why they should put more stock into the words of Palestinian survivors, human rights experts, and genocide scholars over the words of Murdoch columnists.

So here goes.

If you strip back the arrogance, the disconnect from reality, and the imperious disregard for hundreds of thousands of human lives, what unites all of these people is a common claim: we should not care about those who don’t care about us.

This is just not how the world works. Importantly, this is not how queer liberation works either.

You’ve all seen that film about how queer solidarity with Welsh miners led to the effective repeal of laws criminalising homosexuality in Britain (if you haven’t, it’s called ‘Pride’ and Google helpfully tells me it is free to watch on ABC iView).

Trust me, I am well-aware of homophobia within the Muslim community, and within Arab communities more broadly. By way of having lived through it, I am probably a more authoritative source of information on Arab attitudes to queer people than whatever take you’ve seen floating around in the sewerage of the Australian press.

These - endless media spots – some of them so vulgar I refuse to even reference – are designed obfuscate the question of genocide underneath the (often duplicitious, always incoherent) guise of supporting queer rights.

This is called pinkwashing.

The question of whether Israel is committing the crime of genocide should be determined by straightforward application of the relevant international legislation. Does Israel commit any of the acts prohibited by the Genocide Convention with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part,” the Palestinian people?

That’s it. We don’t need to talk about the status of queer people within Israel or within Palestine.

The reason that so many do is to turn a legal question into a political one (dismissing the established legal threshold in favour of “vibes”) and to bestow the aggressor with some semblance of moral superiority (even as they have slaughtered more than 40,000 people).

I’m not aware of any clause within the Genocide Convention, the Rome Statute, or any other instrument of international law that says “genocide is heaps good as long as your victims are homophobic.” It’s a nonsense notion. It’s time to treat it with the disdain that it deserves.

Common sense is your defence against pinkwashing.

But more than that, if your concern is for the well-being of queer people living in Gaza, then you need to stand in active solidarity with Palestine. Queer people in Gaza exist, and there are queer allies in Gaza – some of whom I speak to with regularity.

Moreover, if the Welsh miners taught us anything, it is that solidarity between our two communities – queer and Palestinian – can only strengthen the position of queer rights within Palestinian society.

Indeed, this is exactly what I’ve been seeing at rallies, pickets, and protests, where people from all walks of life have come together to demand an end to the extermination of Palestinian lives. I’ve seen, in real time, the bonds of friendship, respect, and understanding flourish between queers and Muslims.

That’s what you call social cohesion, and it’s not something you’re going to read in the press.

Fahad Ali is a scientist, educator, and writer living on unceded Darug land. He is a Palestinian community organiser, originally from Arrabeh in the occupied West Bank.

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