Maya Mikdashi, a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University, said during a conference held last month that arguing Hamas persecutes LGBTQ+ Palestinians in Gaza is a “homophobic” tactic, Mako reported on Thursday.
The conference, titled “Palestine is a Queer Feminist Struggle Against Imperialism,” took place at Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Professor Mikdashi was with Professor Nadin Navar from the University of Illinois, who delivered several controversial statements herself.
“I have been in demonstrations where people told me, ‘You do not know what Hamas would have done to you if you were in Palestine,'” Mikdashi recounted to students attending the conference, urging them to begin referring to this statement as “homophobic.”
The topic of homophobia
“We need to start calling it homophobic. It is impossible to legitimize violence against queer people – it’s an act of violence.” Professor Navar backed her statements and accused Israel of “pinkwashing” and claimed that Israelis have been raping Palestinian women since the establishment of the Jewish state.
“We will need our organization to focus on queer and trans people not only because they are particularly vulnerable to colonial violence and racism, but because they embody a nuanced wisdom about Zionism as they live with all its complexities,” Navar said, as can be heard in a video clip from the conference circulated on the social media platform X.
On March 20th, Rutgers hosted Palestine is a Feminist and Queer Anti-Imperialist Abolition Struggle with the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Nadine Naber and Rutgers’ Maya Mikdashi.”Our vision if we’re thinking of a Free Palestine or Dismantling the US or abolishing… pic.twitter.com/EjLckuEHJ3
— Stu (@thestustustudio) March 30, 2024
“Indeed, the methods of rape and sexual assault documented during the establishment of the State of Israel and continuing today are not exceptional in colonial violence,” Navar continued. “They are part of the logic and practice of Israel’s white colonial settlers who combine violence against women with the land and nature, assuming that to control the land, one must control the bodies of Palestinian women and their reproductive capacities, from 1948 until today.”
Pinkwashing: Israel’s LGBTQ+ image strategy according to the professors
Navar did not stop there and continued to argue that Israel engages in “pinkwashing” to improve its image globally while reading a text she wrote in 2021 to the Truthout website. “Pinkwashing is a strategy that Israel employs to distract attention from its oppression of Palestinians against a growing international Palestinian solidarity movement,” she read.
“Queer activists, who center their experiences as queer Palestinians, describe pinkwashing as an international propaganda effort to redefine Israel as a ‘modern’ and ‘homophobic-friendly’ state, compared to what it presents as a ‘hyper-homophobic’ ‘Palestinian-Arab.'”
Since the October 7 massacre, there have been numerous protests by the “Queers for Palestine” movement in the United States and around the world, and the clear criticism against them is that the movement ignores Hamas and the Palestinian Authority’s persecution of people within that community, and many Muslims dismiss their support for “Palestinian liberation.”
In February, the Tel Aviv District Court for Administrative Affairs ruled that LGBTQ+ Palestinians in danger due to their sexual orientation in Palestinian territories can request asylum in Israel.
Several media outlets reached out to Professors Mikdashi and Navar for comment, but they have not provided one to date.
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