In a bizarre moment, a drag queen performing at a Massachusetts art center directed children in a pro-Palestinian chant.
Video footage shows the exchange during a “Queer Storytime for Palestine” event organized by the Valley Families for Palestine group at the Northampton Center for the Arts on April 14.
Advertisement
While reading her book “If You’re a Drag Queen and You Know It,” Lil Miss Hot Mess told the children: “If you’re a drag queen and you know it shout ‘Free Palestine.'”
The event included “dancing, celebrating Palestine culture, learning about queer heroes and doing arts and crafts,” according to an Instagram post by the Valley Families for Palestine group. Event profits were donated to alQaws, a Palestinian organization “working for queer liberation.”
How long before American children are going to be taught to chant “bomb Tel Aviv” and “globalize the intifada”? pic.twitter.com/2mi08SbIZJ
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) April 24, 2024
There were other activists at the event, propagandizing to children about sexuality and the Israel/Palestinian conflict.
The event also featured Hannah Moushabeck, a Palestinian American activist and the author of “Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine,” and Sarah Prager, the Massachusetts-based author of “Queer, There, and Everywhere: 27 People Who Changed the World,” “Rainbow Revolutionaries: 50 LGBTQ+ People Who Made History,” “Kind Like Marsha: Learning from LGBTQ+ Leaders,” and “A Child’s Introduction to Pride: The Inspirational History and Culture of the LGBTQIA+ Community.”
Advertisement
The footage, which was widely disseminated on social media, was condemned by many who took issue with the effort to influence young people to oppose Israel. People pointed out that this display would not exactly go over well in the Gaza Strip, which is run by Hamas, an Islamic terrorist group.
Stop Antisemitism, a nonprofit group dedicated to decreasing anti-Jewish bigotry in America, wrote a post on X expounding on how LGBTQ folks are treated in Gaza. “The harsh reality? Members of the LGBTQ+ community are often murdered in Gaza and other Palestinian areas such as Ramallah,” they wrote.
Amherst, MA – Valley Families for Palestine puts on ‘Queer Storytime for Palestine’ in which toddlers are recorded chanting “Free Palestine”.
The harsh reality? Members of the LGBTQ+ community are often murdered in Gaza and other Palestinian areas such as Ramallah. pic.twitter.com/b8qwU4ycR3
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) April 24, 2024
The facts on the ground support this argument. Hamas has been known to terrorize LGBTQ Palestinians in brutal ways.
In 2016, Hamas militants executed one of their own commanders, Mahmoud Ishtiwi, for allegedly having sex with another man. Ishtiwi’s allegiance to the group was clear: Just two years prior, he had overseen 1,000 soldiers and an assortment of attack tunnels. But not even his loyalty could save him after they lodged accusations he had engaged in homosexual activity. Prior to executing him with three bullets to the chest, Hamas reportedly tortured him by whipping him, hanging him from a ceiling for hours, and cranking loud music into his cell in order to deprive him of sleep.
Last year, in the West Bank, 25-year-old Ahmed Abu Marhia’s severed head was found on the side of the road after he was murdered for being gay. The killer videoed the execution and shared it on social media.
Advertisement
This is only one of many examples showing how members of the LGBTQ community are treated in Gaza and the West Bank and underscoring the incongruity of the event.
