Queerly they are Opressed
Mar. 25th, 2008 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaThe Israeli government has given a temporary residency permit for a gay Palestinian man to live with his Israeli lover in Tel-Aviv. Due to threats on his life regarding his sexuality (and, no doubt, relationship with an Israeli).
The article mentions that according to Aswat director Rouda Morcos (a very charismatic speaker and clear voice in minority discourse), there have not been many reports of physical violence in the past few years which were motivated by homophobia and that often the Shabak threaten to out homosexual Palestinians if they don't collaborate.
The article.
I have no doubt that this Palestinian man gave information to the Shabak in exchange for a permit to enter Israel and I have no doubt that he was also threatened with his life because of his sexual orientation.
There are a lot (comparatively, obviously) of gay and lesbian Palestinians living within Israel. The only LGBT group, mentioned above, is based within Israel, in Haifa, which has a large Arab population in any event.
The various (and there is more than one) Arab cultures in Israel and Palestine have been oppressed and suppressed for so long, is it any wonder that queer Palestinians do what they can to leave those areas in which their sexual identity within that national identity are considered taboo?
I mean, women who desecrate the family honour for walking around in jeans or without a hijab or for being raped. The Army doesn't deal with this phenomenon within the West Bank, as far as I'm aware and the Israeli police at times there isn't much they can do for the girl who is threatened with murder, because there isn't any proof that there is a plan to kill her and more often than night the other women within the family participate in the ritualized killing.
This of course doesn't happen in a vacuum.
These are oppressed people within an oppressed segregated society. That doesn't mean that what goes on to those people is acceptable or even legitimate. It does, however, mean that no change in the promotion of women's rights or LGBT rights within Arab, Druze, Bedouin, Palestinian society can be made before any decent progress is made in the treatment they get from Israel as a legal and political body that defines their identity.
Israel, when it comes to LGBT rights isn't very backwards; openly gay men and women serve in the IDF with laws that protect them against homophobia, same-sex couples can register for common-law marriage (a system that allows legal rights for coupes that can't marry because of stupid rabbinical control over marriage laws, which include couples of different religions), they can adopt each other's biological child and very recently a law has passed that includes adoption of non-biological children.
The quality of life in Israel is better is many ways for Arabs who live within the Green Line - as citizens the right to education, the freedom of movement, free speech and everything is far greater than within Palestine. That isn't to say that the their lives are that much better, racism and White (Israeli style) supremacy are so culturally embedded it's disgusting, but there is equality under the law.
Excuse me this entry has gotten jumbled up and away from the point I was trying to make, which is this:
The Occupation oppresses a people, which in turn oppress minorities within that people, those twice or third-over oppressed people do what they can in order to leave the territories under Occupation in order to live more freely in the sovereign state which occupies the people with whose nationality they identify.
In short - it is Effed Up.
That's all.
The article mentions that according to Aswat director Rouda Morcos (a very charismatic speaker and clear voice in minority discourse), there have not been many reports of physical violence in the past few years which were motivated by homophobia and that often the Shabak threaten to out homosexual Palestinians if they don't collaborate.
The article.
I have no doubt that this Palestinian man gave information to the Shabak in exchange for a permit to enter Israel and I have no doubt that he was also threatened with his life because of his sexual orientation.
There are a lot (comparatively, obviously) of gay and lesbian Palestinians living within Israel. The only LGBT group, mentioned above, is based within Israel, in Haifa, which has a large Arab population in any event.
The various (and there is more than one) Arab cultures in Israel and Palestine have been oppressed and suppressed for so long, is it any wonder that queer Palestinians do what they can to leave those areas in which their sexual identity within that national identity are considered taboo?
I mean, women who desecrate the family honour for walking around in jeans or without a hijab or for being raped. The Army doesn't deal with this phenomenon within the West Bank, as far as I'm aware and the Israeli police at times there isn't much they can do for the girl who is threatened with murder, because there isn't any proof that there is a plan to kill her and more often than night the other women within the family participate in the ritualized killing.
This of course doesn't happen in a vacuum.
These are oppressed people within an oppressed segregated society. That doesn't mean that what goes on to those people is acceptable or even legitimate. It does, however, mean that no change in the promotion of women's rights or LGBT rights within Arab, Druze, Bedouin, Palestinian society can be made before any decent progress is made in the treatment they get from Israel as a legal and political body that defines their identity.
Israel, when it comes to LGBT rights isn't very backwards; openly gay men and women serve in the IDF with laws that protect them against homophobia, same-sex couples can register for common-law marriage (a system that allows legal rights for coupes that can't marry because of stupid rabbinical control over marriage laws, which include couples of different religions), they can adopt each other's biological child and very recently a law has passed that includes adoption of non-biological children.
The quality of life in Israel is better is many ways for Arabs who live within the Green Line - as citizens the right to education, the freedom of movement, free speech and everything is far greater than within Palestine. That isn't to say that the their lives are that much better, racism and White (Israeli style) supremacy are so culturally embedded it's disgusting, but there is equality under the law.
Excuse me this entry has gotten jumbled up and away from the point I was trying to make, which is this:
The Occupation oppresses a people, which in turn oppress minorities within that people, those twice or third-over oppressed people do what they can in order to leave the territories under Occupation in order to live more freely in the sovereign state which occupies the people with whose nationality they identify.
In short - it is Effed Up.
That's all.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 09:46 pm (UTC)In Gaza... well, you try and say something that implies going against the Hamas world view.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-25 10:47 pm (UTC)I was really annoyed to see the 2 or 3 posts in suport of the OP. I had just finished writing a post in a leftist forum about how racism pisses me off, and I turn to a forum whose platform is anti-apartheid to see more racism. Anyways, I hope he didn't hurt your feelings, I don't know why he thought it would be appropriate to post anti-semitic trash, especially in a furm visited by many Jews.