The following is a comment made in September by my favorite Palestinian poet Nahida Izzat*:

A reflection on the implication of politicisation of sexual behaviour/ orientation and its infringement on children’s rights, all this in relation to the Palestinian cause

Now, is the issue of promoting and celebrating homosexuality (again, I reiterate, a private act which should not be anyone’s business) related to the Palestinian struggle for Liberation?

Are we obliged to start teaching our young Palestinian boys and girls about homosexual and LGBT “persecution” and “abuse of human rights” in order to be “accepted” as “progressive” society worthy of support?

Are we obliged to start competing with”Israel” which prides itself of being gay heaven in order for our supporters to be satisfied?

Just like attempting to tie our Palestinian struggle for liberation with causes which only distracts us from focusing on our goals and deplete our energies, like fighting “antisemitism”, “holocaust denial”, or “conspiracy theories”, pretending that this is the way for Palestine liberation, we refuse the imposition and the premises that the issue of “homosexuality is central to our cause”.

We refuse to consider sexual orientation issues as primal or urgent issues to be dealt with immediately, or that it the most burning issue in our quest for justice and freedom, when we have not yet achieved the most basic and fundamental human right ever, the right of SURVIVAL,

We do not accept to see our Palestinian struggle for freedom hijacked and used by some campaign groups who try to piggy-back on the Palestine cause in order to promote their own agenda and campaigns for “sexual freedom”, which would only distract, complicate and skew the essense of Palestine issues.

Moreover, this issue should be left to the Palestinians and other societies to examine, discuss and deal with, in its own time and in accordance with its own ethics and what is best for those societies.

We refuse to be distracted and our aims obscured by side issues while we struggle for survival facing threats of genocidal magnitude.

* Nahida added to her article the following disclaimer:

This article is not a condonation or justification of any form of discrimination or persecution against people with various sexual orientations or disorders, it is a mere expression of an opinion and sharing of concerns associated with promoting explicit sexual education amongst children and pressurising other societies to change their codes of ethics, thus destroying the cradle of child-protection, the family unit being the foundation of these societies.