Bristol’s queer communities are taking the fight against pinkwashing genocide
It is 7 May 2024, the sort of mild evening that floods the streets around St Nick’s Market with half-drunk students and that particular brand of middle-aged man who posts about pronouns on Facebook.
Activists form a half-circle in front of Seamus O’Donnell’s, a gay Irish pub. A protester steps to the front of the cluster – “No pride in genocide,” the group takes up the chant, raising hand-painted banners and pressing closer together.
This is Bristol Queers for Palestine. The members are protesting the bar’s decision to host a Eurovision finals party despite calls from Palestinian groups to boycott Eurovision. Formed two months prior, the group aims to mobilise the queer community of Bristol in support of Palestine whilst combating pinkwashing, a widespread Israeli PR tactic.
Pinkwashing is “used by Israel to falsely portray the country as progressive while presenting Palestinian, Arab and Muslim societies as backwards and intolerant”, writes Nada Elia, professor of Afro-American studies at Brown University.
Gaining prominence through Brand Israel, a 2005 PR campaign that sought to sell Israel to a liberal demographic, pinkwashing justifies colonial violence through the language of liberation. Israel presents itself as a beacon of tolerance, even as it subjects queer Palestinians to brutal oppression including medication blockades, bombing and blackmail.
Eurovision is inextricably linked to pinkwashing. By participating in events that position Israel closer to the West, it can make use of colonial narratives that obscure its brutal actions. The camp of Eurovision adds an effervescent varnish to a state built on the displacement and massacre of the Palestinian people.
‘Alienating us on the basis of our queerness’
At times, pinkwashing is obscured by a layer of glitter, at others its violence is laid bare. In a post on the official Israel Instagram an IDF soldier kneels in the rubble of a Palestinian home. A grin is spread across his face as he holds aloft a pride flag. “The first ever pride flag raised in Gaza,” reads the caption.
Rachel, an activist with Queers for Palestine, describes pinkwashing as emblematic of “the idea that queer liberation goes hand in hand with colonial domination”.
“I always find that really dehumanising, gay people have always existed, regardless of whether it’s legal or not – it might be illegal for me to do certain things in my country, but it doesn’t mean people aren’t defying it,” Mitochondria, an activist with Queers for Palestine, tells me.
“It is when your country is stable and far away from conflict and war and colonisation that you have the time, that queer people have the time and the space and the mental capacity, to focus on their liberation around queerness outside just trying to survive.”
In opposition to the pinkwashing narrative, Queers in Palestine, a grassroots movement, made its stance clear.
“We refuse the instrumentalization of our queerness, our bodies, and the violence we face as queer people to demonize and dehumanize our communities, especially in service of imperial and genocidal acts,” a statement reads. “We refuse that Palestinian sexuality and Palestinian attitudes towards diverse sexualities become parameters for assigning humanity to any colonized society. We deserve life because we are human, with the multitude of our imperfections, and not because of our proximity to colonial modes of liberal humanity. We refuse colonial and imperialist tactics that seek to alienate us from our society and alienate our society from us, on the basis of our queerness.”
Co-opting identity politics
While disrupting pinkwashing on an international scale is an enormous task, in a situation of genocide and occupation it is necessary that communities mobilise to resist in whatever ways they are able. It is the connection of these disparate pockets of protest that can amplify the message that queer communities across the globe are refusing any and all attempts to use their name and their suffering in service of colonial domination.
In Bristol, pinkwashing is a local issue. BAE, a weapons manufacturer instrumental in the arming of Israel, operates offices here. It has sponsored pride parades and is featured on the Stonewall top 100 LGBT employers.
Weaponising the imagery of diversity, BAE obscures its part in brutal, colonial, violence. “[It] definitely fits into a liberal co-option of identity politics, disconnected from radical origins and hollowed out of any material analysis – this gives it no capability of doing anything other than buttress power,” explains Rachel.
The University of Bristol is another institution that uses pinkwashing to divert attention from its complicity in genocide. Known for its progressive ethos, the university holds over $92 million in ties with arms manufacturers. As it aids weapons development, and funnels students towards jobs in the arms industry, it touts its liberal credentials.
During a University of Bristol open weekend in 2024, Queers for Palestine sought to disrupt this image. At welcome events activists unveiled banners at the front of lecture halls, delivering speeches to prospective students.
On the basement floor of the Mathematics Institute, a small room was dedicated to the LGBT welcome talk. Throughout the talk activists stood at 10-minute intervals, delivering a speech and leaving with a chant of Free Palestine.
Queering the map
As corporations across Bristol raise a rainbow flag in one hand while aiding genocide with the other, queer Palestinians in Gaza use platforms such as Queering the Map to document their experience. In one post a writer mourns their dead lover.
“I’ve always imagined you and me sitting out in the sun, hand and hand, free at last,” it reads. “We spoke of all the places we would go if we could. Yet you are gone now. If I had known the bombs raining down on us would take you from me, I would have gladly told the world how I adored you more than anything. I’m sorry I was a coward.”
To claim LGBT solidarity while aiding Israel is a violent contradiction built on the erasure of queer Palestinians.
“It is not too late to recommit to the abolition of the Zionist entity and the liberation of Palestine. Invest in the abolition of every system of oppression and join a queer group in your city or create one, join the new demonstrations taking place inside Palestine, the West Bank and 48 territories and take your queer friends with you,” write AlQaws, a grassroots queer Palestinian movement, in response to the genocide.
In Bristol, it is vital we do not relent in our irritation of the mechanisms that have made possible the genocide in Gaza. From pickets to protests to fundraisers, there are numerous opportunities for local people to take a stand. Where there is a gap in action it takes only the will of a few to fill it.
‘We need to step up’
Speaking to me on why they organise with Queers for Palestine, local activist Sarah explains: “I think maybe people in Bristol are a little too comfortable with themselves.
“We have this reputation of being extremely left-leaning and progressive and open-minded,” Sarah says. “Because we’ve got that reputation, a lot of people, especially white people, don’t feel like they need to be doing their homework. And I think that that’s going to be a huge downfall.”
There are moments of hope. On 12 July, Bristol Queers for Palestine took part in the radical block at Bristol Pride. In Castle Park two activists hoisted a hand-sewn banner. Chants rose and fell, “No Pride in Genocide” meeting, “We Will not be Quiet! Stonewall was a Riot!”
Not all Pride parades display solidarity with Palestine. Across the country, parades are funded by corporations complicit in the genocide, pinkwashing an embedded element of mainstream LGBT culture.
On 15 January a ceasefire was announced in Gaza, and in the weeks following thousands of Palestinians have returned to Northern Gaza. While we cautiously celebrated this news, as uncertainty reigns – exacerbated by Donald Trump’s deeply disturbing comments about taking over Palestinians’ homeland – it is vital that we continue to mobilise for a free Palestine.
Escalating settler violence is racking the West Bank. History tells us the ceasefire cannot be trusted to hold.
At the end of our interview, Mitochondria delivered a message. “If you’re a queer person reading this article, your suffering against oppression is very seen and validated, and you’re not alone in suffering. You’re not alone in the need for change.
“But we can’t rely on our oppressor to free us. We have to fight, and one way of fighting is to join and organize and grow. We are not free until all of us are free. All our struggles are so interconnected, and we need to step up.”
