The Fall of Pride. And the March Into Mayhem

During this year’s Pride Month, a dissonant chorus has grown louder within our community — chants for “Queers for Palestine,” “Dyke Intifada,” “Fags for Hamas.” At first glance, these slogans sound like radical solidarity. But a closer look reveals a harrowing betrayal of everything LGBTQIA+ people have fought —and died for. 

Pride is built on advocacy for equal human rights, healthcare and marriage, the celebration of LGBTQIA+ identity, homophobia and resistance to queer oppression, and affirming identities in defiance of cultures that try to silence the community into hiding and shame.

To those raising fists in solidarity with the “Free Palestine” movement in the Western world and chanting “resistance by any means necessary,” we ask: Does your “resistance support” include the execution of queer people? The rape of women at music festivals? The murder of peace activists and aid workers? The murder of babies? The slaughter of young adults at a peace-loving music festival? 

Do these actions uphold the principles intended to defy oppressive cultures that silence vulnerable communities?

When Palestinians in Gaza march in defiance of Hamas and the Western world marches against Israel which is fighting a defensive war against Hamas — isn’t supporting Palestinians the goal worth fighting for?  “Free Palestine from Hamas” is the chant we should shout.

Hamas is a political and military group which murdered their political opponents in Gaza in 2006 and never allowed elections again.  Hamas is condemned by Middle East countries Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for mass murder and connections with The Muslim Brotherhood.  Hamas siphons billions of dollars intended for humanitarian aid to keep their leadership in luxury in Qatar while also preventing the infrastructure building projects the money is intended for to build military operations under hospitals, schools and homes in Gaza. Hamas continually executes cynical and twisted strategies that sacrifice Palestinians after they initiate terrorist attacks.  They intentionally use the high body count to convince uneducated Westerners to donate money to keep leadership living large, Palestinians oppressed and the military capability growing so they can advance the terror sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. They make it clear in their own charter and materials that Israel is just the first stop in Western domination.

Palestinian leadership terrorizes the people they rule, and specifically the LGBTQ+ community. Israel has been providing safe harbor for LBGTQ+ Palestinians and Arabs across the Middle East for over a decade to escape honor killings, state and militia torture, discrimination without legal protection and forced exile.

• Consider the violent murder of Ahmed Abu Markiya in 2022 by Palestinian Mohammed Abu Eisheh. Ahmed fled to Israel in 2020, seeking safety in Israel because of threats to his life for his sexuality.

• The Human Rights Watch have documented many honor killings where gay and gender non-conforming Palestinians are killed by family members to “preserve family honor.” These go unprosecuted.

• OutRight Action International documents LGBTQ+ arrests, torture and complete disappearance for “immorality”

Hamas is not a liberation movement. It is a terrorist organization designated by the U.S., Canada, UK, EU, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Paraguay, Switzerland, Argentina and Israel.  Hamas governs Gaza through fear, religious extremism, and brutal violence including the execution of LGBTQ+ people. Hamas was kicked out of Jordan (a Muslim ally country that shares a border with Israel) in 1999 for mass murder and overthrowing the government.  Hamas was expelled in 2014 from Egypt (another Muslim and Christian ally country that shares a border with Israel). Hamas glorifies the deaths of civilians, including its own. 

And yet, in 2025, major Pride organizations are embracing its slogans and talking points while failing to condemn its atrocities—including the massacre of over 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, 2023, while additionally kidnapping  251 hostages who were tortured in Gaza many of whom were queer activists, artists, and allies. These were peace-loving civilians from Israel, Argentina, Germany, US, France, Russia, China, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Philippines,  Thailand and Nepal. As of June 17, 2025, there are still 53 hostages in captivity in Gaza.

This is not about denying Palestinian suffering. Supporting Palestinian dignity and safety should be a moral imperative. But that imperative is corrupted when it requires aligning with a genocidal ideology that explicitly calls for the execution of gay people and the annihilation of Jews and Western civilization.

You can support Palestinian rights without romanticizing Hamas. You can mourn for Gaza without vilifying Israel. You can demand justice without abandoning moral clarity.

We are seeing moral confusion uniquely enabled by social media: where trauma meets tribalism, where empathy is hijacked by propaganda – and the algorithm feeds engagement — not education. Our community’s hard-earned capacity for coalition-building—our superpower—has become a vulnerability. Online, where the speed of outrage often outpaces discernment, we risk becoming pawns in narratives that actively seek our destruction.

Consider this:  Israel is the only country in the region where LGBTQ+ rights are legally protected and culturally visible. In many Middle East countries homosexual behavior is punishable by death.  In Gaza and Iran — Hamas’ top ideological and financial backer — LGBTQ+ people are routinely arrested, tortured, and executed. Meanwhile, Israel is the only country in the region with full protection under the law.  They can live openly, marry, adopt children, have full inheritance rights, serve in the military and in public office. Gay marriage has been legal since 1988 in Israel (it wasn’t legalized in the U.S. until 2015). Israel hosts three Pride parades — Tel Aviv hosts one of the world’s largest. LGBTQ+ Palestinians and Middle East citizens seek safety in Israel—not despite its existence, but because of it.

And women’s rights? In Israel there’s legal gender equality.  Freedom of dress, safe abortion access.  Women are at all levels of political, business and military leadership. Women in Israel have more legal rights, protections, and freedoms than women in the 22 Muslim countries in the Middle East. There are stark differences in every category: legal status, personal freedoms, political participation, workplace rights, and protections from violence.

Arab Muslims in Israel have more individual civil rights and freedoms than Arab Muslims living in most of the 22 Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East. This includes legal, political, religious, gender, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Israel is the only Jewish majority state in the world. Though unlike the other 22 majority Muslim ethnostates in the Middle East, Israel stands alone as uniquely diverse, democratic and equal. There is religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity not seen anywhere else. Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Baha’i, Samaritans live side by side.  Israel has citizens from the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, Ethiopia, India, Thailand, Philippines.

There are 7.2 million Jews, 2 million Arabs—living together with equal civil rights, representation in the Supreme Court + Knesset (Parliament).   Compare that to the  22 Muslim countries with 400 million Muslims, 14 million Christians (10 million in Egypt alone), and fewer than 20,000 Jews in all countries combined.

Israel has peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Morocco, Sudan, and Bahrain.

Jews original and continuous homeland exists in a region dominated by colonial authoritarian extremist regimes who have made very public their goal of exterminating 100% of the Jews to exert complete dominance in the region.

Jews have lived in Israel for thousands of years before Christianity and Islam existed — and over half of the Jews in Israel are Mizrahi Jews. Israel is home to nearly 50% of the tiny global Jewish population. Jews are 0.2% of the entire world population.

Why, then, have so many queer activists chosen to turn their backs on the only place in the region where our rights are protected?  This strategy is intentional and well funded.

Jews in the Middle East represent what extremists have tried — and have never succeeded at erasing — Jewish indigeneity that predated them. 

Liberation that demands the elimination of others is tyranny and terrorism in disguise. Liberation requires you don’t only listen to the loudest voices, but that you understand the full depth of what you’re supporting. Loudness and rightness often have no relationship.

Solidarity means applying our values evenly. It means recognizing that anti-queer hatred and antisemitism are often two heads of the same monster. And it means standing with those who stand with us—not with those who dance on our graves.

Pride must not fall — for our community — and for the allies that support us.

Cousins and proud members of the Queer community, Jacob Fenton serves on the Board of Directors of JFEDLA and chairs its Entertainment, Media & Communications Network. Gabriel Goldberg is an advisor to The Shoshana Project and travelled to Israel to celebrate Pride this year.  At the time of article completion, Gabriel was still in Israel after Tel Aviv Pride was cancelled due to the Israel-Iran war