"Describing Hamas’ brutalization of LGBTQ Palestinians needs to be labeled "homophobic violence," university professors suggested at an event last month.
Associate Professor Maya Mikdashi took part in a discussion at the school titled "Palestine is a Feminist and ***** Anti-Imperialist Abolition Struggle" with University of Illinois professor Nadine Naber on March 20. During the event, Mikdashi pushed back on the complaint that Palestinians and
Hamas mistreat LGBTQ citizens, claiming that the assertion itself is a form of bigotry.
"So I’ve been at protests where I’m then told, ‘Don’t you know what Hamas would do to you, if you were in Palestine.’ And we have to start naming this, actually, as homophobic,"
Mikdashi said, as Naber vocally agreed. "You cannot rehearse violence to ***** people and be like, ‘don’t you know … A, B, you would be…' in really excruciating detail. I think we have to actually shift it."
"It's violence," an audience member said.
"It’s homophobic. It’s violent," Mikdashi agreed.
"Homophobic violence," Naber affirmed.
Naber also alleged that the concept was based on a "racist assumption" that Arab culture is "hyper-misogynist" and rooted in "backwards or savage concepts." She later insisted that Israel is guilty of sexual assault based on its colonialist founding.
"I
ndeed the practices of rape and sexual assault that have been well-documented during the founding of Israel and continued today are not an exception or a secondary impact of colonial violence but are part of the settler colonial White supremacist logics and practices of Israel that conflate colonized women with the land and nature and assume that therefore to dominate the land necessitates dominating Palestinian women’s bodies and their reproductive capacities from 1948 until today," Naber said.
She further added that there needs to be more organization of ***** and trans people who are dealing with Zionism."
Speechless. Truly.