What about the Gaza Gays?

On Christmas Day a new war began between Israel and Hamas and 2008 quite literally ended with a bang as the Israel’s Defense Forces pounded Hamas positions in Gaza.

Hamas has launched thousands of rockets into Israel, and killed innocent men, women and children. This is what Israel says this war started over. Right now thousands of Israeli troops backed by tanks and helicopter gun ships are surrounding Gaza’s largest city.

Hamas, created in 1987 is notorious for its numerous suicide bombings and other attacks on Israeli civilians and security forces. The Hamas’ charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state in the area that is now Israel.

Canada, the European Union, Japan, and the United States, have all designated Hamas a terrorist organization.

But With all the news about this new war I had to wonder what effect it is all having on our Gay Palestinian Bothers and Sisters.

Their life is never an easy one at the best of times. Hamas is no friend to Palestinian gays and it has stripped what little rights Palestinian Gay had away in 2006. Most Palestinians have been raised to believe that homosexuality and cross-dressing are immoral acts. Homosexuality is held as detestable and punishable by law; prison, beatings and torture are the norm for them.

Some LGBT Palestinians relocate, and many gay Palestinians flee Gaza into Israel, many with the help of gay Israelis, some of who are now probably dropping those bombs on Gaza. For in Israel, life for gays is very much different you see.

Israel’s Defense Forces allow gays to serve openly and even in special units. In 1992 legislation was introduced to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Same sex marriages performed outside of Israel are recognized. Foreign partners of gays receive residency permits while spousal benefits and pensions are extended to the partners of homosexual employees. Israel’s attorney general has also granted legal recognition to same-sex couples in financial and other business matters. Lesbians can officially adopt children born to their partners by artificial insemination from an anonymous sperm donor.

But even in Israel, life for Palestinian gays is not always rosy because most of the time they are hiding out illegally in Israel in order to escape persecution in their homelands.

An article in the Middle East Times tells of how Israeli gay advocates have started a project to help protect and promote the rights of gay Palestinians who had fled the West Bank and the Arab villages in Israel. But in Gaza another problem facing gay Palestinians is that many in their community equate their being gay with collaboration with Israel.

Yes, sometimes the Israeli secret police try to recruit them, and sometimes the Palestinian police try to recruit them. Even worst some have been pressured to become a suicide bombers in order to ‘purge their moral guilt’.

But even if they are neither collaborators nor a security threat, they can easily become targets for exploitation by Israeli men, as many have to work as prostitutes, selling their bodies unwillingly because they have to survive.

Palestinian Gays are everyone hokey puck and every ones victim.

They are sure to be big losers in this war.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-116.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3211772.stm

http://www.metimes.com/International/2008/01/10/israels_other_war/7315/