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Queerness as a Weapon: Pinkwashing, Counterinsurgency, and the Battle for Queer Resistance

Author(s): Nadine Abu Arafeh
Type:
Final project
Year of publication:
2025
Specialisation:
Gender and Media, Gender and Sexuality, Gender and Colonialism
Number of pages:
55
Supervisors: Dr. Íris Ellenberger

Abstract

This paper argues that Israel employs sexuality politics, specifically through Homonationalism and pinkwashing, as a tool of counterinsurgency to fragment Palestinian society and weaken resistance. By instrumentalizing LGBTQ+ rights, Israel seeks to present itself as an “LGBTQ- friendly occupier" when, in fact, it is strategically using LGBTQ+ inclusion to align with broader nationalist, neoliberal, and security narratives.

Drawing on discourse analysis of public reports and Instagram media content, including images, videos, and captions produced by Israeli LGBTQ+ organizations, the Aguda and Beit El-Meem, the paper demonstrates how LGBTQ+ identities are co-opted to undermine Palestinian solidarity and, ultimately, Palestinian resistance.

The paper also examines parallel media produced by a Palestinian queer organization, alQaws, to show how queer liberation is framed as inseparable from the broader anti-colonial struggle. The paper concludes that resisting pinkwashing requires reclaiming queerness as a tool for liberation, not as a means of complicity with colonial oppression.