Recording:
On June 10, 2026, Freedom Advocacy Network was honored to be host the awesome Jannah and Katya Bachrouche, co-founders of Pink Thawra. Pink Thawra is “A Lebanese-led, Queer + Ally community and consulting organization supporting the LGBTQIA+ Palestinian/broader SWANA community in the fight for Palestinian Liberation.”.
Jannah and I are part of a couple of common networks and I have been very inspired by the work Pink Thawra has been doing in raising awareness against the Pinkwashing that the Israeli regime does and how that gets used in the hasbara. I am excited and looking forward to learn from her.
Agenda:
Pinkwashing is when states, corporations, or organizations promote themselves as LGBTQIA+-friendly to distract from or justify other violence they’re carrying out. In this webinar, we’ll expose how Israel weaponizes Queer rights while erasing both Palestinian oppression and the reality of LGBTQIA+ life in Israel itself. We’ll center the voices of Queer Palestinians who are organizing for liberation on their own terms, examine the gap between rainbow branding and actual LGBTQIA+ safety in Israel and the US, and explore why Palestinian Liberation and Queer Liberation are inseparable struggles.
Slides:
https://linktr.ee/freedomadvocacynetwork link to join the meeting
Housekeeping:
Links:
https://www.instagram.com/pinkthawra
https://www.linkedin.com/company/pink-thawra
https://share.upscrolled.com/en/user/c6b325a9-b2cf-49bf-bfa8-66ec4747ab6f
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannahbachrouche
https://www.linkedin.com/in/katyabachrouche
Meeting links:
https://www.instagram.com/queers.for.palestine
https://www.instagram.com/ward.gaza.queer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52364253-queer-palestine-and-the-empire-of-critique
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo5378447.html
https://www.instagram.com/aswatfreedoms/?hl=en
Notes:
- Glossary / vocab
A LGBTQIA+ : (L)esbian, (G)ay, (B)isexual, (T)rans, (Q)ueer ()ntersex, (A)sexual
‘+ means this acronym is not a complete list. There are many other identities, such as Pansexual, Nonbinary, Two-Spirit, and more. Language around identity is always evolving and shaped by different cultures and communities
Pinkwashing: Pinkwashing is a propaganda strategy in which a state (Israel and the US being two examples), corporation, or institution promotes itself as “friendly,” “inclusive,” and/or
“allies” to LGBTQIA+ people in order to distract from, mask, or legitimize other forms of oppression and violence it is carrying out
Glossary / vocab
Intersectionality: Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to name how Black women’s experiences weren’t just rooted in race, but also in sexism
Intersectionality looks at how different forms of oppression (like racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, etc.) overlap in real people’s lives, creating experiences of harm that can’t be understood by looking at each form of oppression separately
Homonationalism: Coined by Jasbir Puar where states and movements use LGBTQIA+ inclusion to build a nationalist image of being modern and “tolerant”. They then turn that inclusion into a weapon against racialized, migrant, and especially Muslim and Arab “Others” – rewarding certain “good gays” who fit the nation while abandoning or targeting everyone else
The West Bank timeline
British mandate period
The British criminal code applied a classic colonial anti-sodomy provision in Palestine; this is the origin of the “order of nature” language people still confuse with West Bank law
today.
Occupation overlays the system
Israeli military rule does not reinsert a sodomy article into West Bank criminal law. But occupation created a dual legal system and expanded coercive control, so repression operated through military, security, and social mechanisms rather than a named “homosexuality” offense.
Media distortion & Pinkwashing
As Israeli state marketing increasingly uses
“gay rights” to pinkwash occupation, Western and Israeli media repeatedly claim that “homosexuality is illegal for
Palestinians.” This often erases the fact that the only explicit sodomy text still operating is a British colonial clause kept in Gaza, while the West Bank has had no such clause since 1951.
Jordan annexes West Bank
Jordan extends its legal system and adopts a new penal code that does not criminalize consensual same-sex
acts between adults, replacing the British clause in the West Bank. This did not create equality protections. It meant homosexuality was no longer explicity criminalized in the code.
Palestinian Authority era
The Oslo Accords create the Palestinian
Authority (PA), which assumes limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank. The PA does not pass a new comprehensive penal code that criminalizes homosexuality, nor does it pass a law explicitly protecting sexual orientation or gender identity.
The legal gaps
The PA police in the West Bank announce a ban on activities of Al-Qaws, a Palestinian queer and feminist organization, claiming such activities are “harmful to the higher values and ideals of Palestinian society.
This public ban has since been walked back. Today, same-sex activity between consenting adults is legal.
LGBTQIA+ voices in
Palestine
They exist. Listen to their experiences.
LGBTQIA+ voices in Palestine
As a queer Palestinian, I find myself torn between two forms of exile:
Queers In Gaza
I say: I refuse to be exiled twice. I refuse to be erased from the map because l am Palestinian, and I refuse to have my face erased because I am queer.
The exile of occupation, which robs me of my home, my land, and my sky, and turns my daily existence into a struggle for survival.
I am here, on this land, and in this body. I carry my identity whole, without fragmentation.
My resistance begins with holding on to my right to exist, to love, to live free as a complete human being, not a half that pleases the occupation nor a half that pleases society.
And the exile of society, which tries to drive me out of my own body, out of my right to love, to be who lam-without fear and without disguise.
LGBTQIA+ voices in Palestine
ward.gaza.queer
•••
في اليوم الدولي لمكافحة الهوموفوبيا, فخورة/فخور بالهوية الكويرية الفلسطينية التي تثبت وجودها في جبهات متعددة لتنتزع حقها في الوجود، الحب، والأمان
On the International Day Against
Homophobia, I am proud of the Palestinian queer identity, which tights on multiple tronts to reclaim its right to existence, love, and safety.
أن تكون كويريا وفلسطينياً يعني أنك تحمل عبء الجرح الوطني وعبء الرفض المجتمعي, لكنه يعني ايضا انك تمتلك شجاعة استثنائية لتعريف نفسك وصياغة حريتك فى أكثر الظروف تعقيداً.
be queer and Palestinian means bearing th the weight of the Palestinian wound ar the burden of societal rejection. Yet, it also means possessing the extraordinary courage to define yourself and craft your freedom in the most complex circumstances.
How Pinkwashing shows up
4 basic pillars of Pinkwashing
From Sa’ed Atshan
1 Highlighting LGBTQ+ “rights” in Israel while hiding and ignoring Israeli homophobia
2
Highlighting Palestinian homophobia while erasing moments of Queer Palestinian joy and positive experiences
3
Comparing Israeli and Palestinian attitudes toward Queerness to paint Israel as
‘Civilized” and Palestiniansasbarbaric”
4
Branding Israel as a “safe haven” for LGQIA+ people to attract tourism, investment, and political support
How Pinkwashing shows up
Vilification
The narrative that Palestinians and other Arabs, and Muslims, are somehow uniquely and more extremely homophobic and violent is a narrative that has been built over decades
This myth erases the reality: homophobia exists everywhere, including in
Israel and the West
Colonial powers have always portrayed colonized people as “backward” on gender and sexuality to justify violence against them
How Pinkwashing shows up
Used to justify genocide
“The first ever pride flag raised in Gaza –
Yoav Atzmoni who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community wanted to send a message of hope to the people of Gaza living under Hamas brutality.
His intention was to raise the first pride flag in Gaza as a call for peace and freedom.”
“Go be gay in Gaza”
“You support Hamas, they would throw you off a roof”
“Someone who is a part of the
LGBTQ+ community should also want to understand Hamas would want you dead because of that, the IDF would not.”
“[The Middle East is] a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted.
Israel stands out. It’s different.”
- This billboard is from April 2010 – not during pride month
- Israeli regime did this month long “culture festival” in April 2010
- LGBTQ community centre in Tel Aviv was attacked – and Israel spent millions of dollars in advertising to try to counter it
How Pinkwashing shows up
“PRIDE”
= X NEW YORK POST
Edition (CA ~ NY)
US Nows
Metro
Long Island
Politics
World Not
WORLD NEWS
Israel set to host Middle East’s largest pride festival
By Ronny Reyes
Published April 20, 2026, 9: 19 p.m. ET
AD 212
The ultimate goal of the festival is to create a multigenerational “Pride City” to unite locals and tourists. The festival is also set to highlight the Dead Sea as a key getaway for LGBTQ visitors. organizers said.
The promotion for the festival comes at a rough time for tourism in Israel, which has suffered due to its ongoing conflict with Iran and its terror proxy, Hezbollah, in neighboring Lebanon.
Israel will host the Middle East’s largest-ever
LGBTQ festival in the summer, with organizers planning to build a veritable “Pride City” at the Dead Sea.
The new Pride Land festival will transform a section of the Judean Desert into a party destination with 15 hotels and beach complexes, plus parties and performances running around
How Pinkwashing shows up
Brand Israel
Started “officially” in 2005, the Brand Israel campaign is a joint project of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Tourism Ministry and Strategic Affairs Ministry; the goal being to shift Israel’s global image from “conflict and occupation” to “innovation, culture, lifestyle,” emphasizing high-tech, Mediterranean leisure, and shared Western values
- Decline in pride participating, data around that, has been strategically hidden
- There definitely has been a decline, but data is not available
Why should we care now about
LGBTQIA+ Palestinians?
How LGBTQIA+ Liberation is relevant to
Palestinian Liberation
If being queer means dreaming of a more just existence, a world liberated from oppressive structures, then any struggle for emancipation, any quest for dignity and reparative justice – that of the Palestinian people as much as of any people crushed by colonial violence – is and must be a queer struggle.
Lamiae Bouqentar,
This Queer Arab Family
Why should we care now about LGBTQIA+ Palestinians?
3 Schools of Thought
From Sa’ed Atshan
1
2
Simultaneous, no-hierarchy liberation
This position insists that anti-Zionism and anti-homophobia must be fought together, drawing on Audre Lorde’s “there is no hierarchy of oppressions.” Queer liberation and Palestinian liberation are co-constitutive, not sequential
National-first / single-axis approach
Here, the Palestinian national struggle is prioritized, and homophobia or patriarchy are treated as secondary or “internal” issues to be addressed after (or separately from) ending occupation and apartheid
Global queer-solidarity / anti-pinkwashing approach
This approach centers exposing Israeli pinkwashing and building transnational queer solidarity, often in the global North: boycotts of Israeli cultural events, protests at Pride, and critiques of “Gay Tel Aviv” branding
Freedom Advocacy Network 
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