Maya Mikdashi, an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and a lecturer in the Program for Middle East Studies at Rutgers University, participated in a recent discussion where she claims accurately describing Hamas’ brutalization of LGBTQ Palestinians should be labeled “homophobic violence.”
Mikdashi participated in a discussion titled “Palestine is a Feminist and Queer Anti-Imperialist Abolition Struggle,” where she pushed back on the complaint that Palestinians and Hamas mistreat LGBTQ citizens.
She was joined by University of Illinois professor Nadine Naber.
Mikdashi’s claim? The mere assertion of Hamas’ brutality against LGBTQ people is itself a form of bigotry.
“So I’ve been at protests where I’m then told, ‘Don’t you know what Hamas would do to you, if you were in Palestine.’ And we have to start naming this, actually, as homophobic,” Mikdashi said, as Naber vocally agreed. “You cannot rehearse violence to queer people and be like, ‘don’t you know … A, B, you would be…’ in really excruciating detail. I think we have to actually shift it.”
“It’s violence,” an audience member said.
“It’s homophobic. It’s violent,” Mikdashi agreed.
“Homophobic violence,” Naber affirmed.
“And we have to move it from thinking only in terms of pinkwashing to actually understanding pinkwashing as a form of homophobia,” Mikdashi said.
Naber further suggested that the concept was based on a “racist assumption” that Arab culture is “hyper-misogynist.”
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