25/05/2021
There is, for the time being, a ceasefire between Israel's southern border and Palestine's Gaza City, brokered by the state of Egypt, and which is largely holding, according to international news channel Al Jazeera. The repercussions of the eleven day war however, continue to reverberate. LGBTQ communities are as divided as the general population on the continued lack of peace in the Middle East, and at times the rhetoric has been less than civil. On the one side are leftist LGBTQ groups such as the US based network QUIT, which oppose Israel's international policy in the region, and on the other, LGBTQ groups who point out that Israel is the only country in the region where gay and transgender people are tolerated or have any legal rights. According to Rosa Doherty writing in this week's issue of the Jewish Chronicle, there is an element of macho male left wingers in the pro-Palestine movement in the UK who are also violently misogynistic. She says that a convoy of cars recently drove through primarily Jewish communities in North London, draped in Palestinian flags and with a man on a megaphone screaming that Jewish women “should be raped” in retaliation for the actions of the Israeli government, three thousand miles away. Ms Doherty writes that the leftist groups that support Palestine are riddled with anti-Semitism and violence, misogyny and homophobia. She concludes “I know those men are a loud and vocal minority. They are not representative of the majority of people who want to show support for Palestine. But they felt free to express pure hatred from the comfort of their cars, wrapping their misogyny in a Palestinian flag”.