Hamas would shoot gay supporters — Netanyahu

The Israeli prime minister has lashed out at the one-in-five Americans who say they support Hamas

“Gays for Gaza” should reconsider their support for the Palestinian cause, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared, arguing that American homosexuals would be “shot in the back of the head” in the Palestinian territory.

Speaking to Punchbowl News ahead of his address to the US Congress next month, Netanyahu lamented a recent poll which found that 20% of Americans support Hamas in its armed struggle against Israel.

“Who are they supporting? These murderers, these rapists of women, the beheaders of babies, the burning of innocent civilians, the taking of hostages, including Holocaust survivors?” he told the news site on Thursday.  

“The people who protest with these killers…you have Gays for Gaza. That’s an absurdity if I’ve ever heard one. If you are gay in Gaza, you’ll be shot in the back of the head,” Netanyahu continued, before singling out the Palestinians’ feminist supporters.

“Women for Gaza. What are women in Gaza? They’re chattel and other such absurdities,” he complained.

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LGBTQ groups have joined anti-Israel campus protests in the US and marches in the UK, while more than 500 such organizations have signed on to the ‘No Pride with Genocide’ statement published by Queers in Palestine, a group describing itself as “a collective of Queer and Trans anti-Zionist Palestinians, Arabs, Jews, and allies.”

However, this outpouring of LGBTQ support has angered some of the more conservative anti-Israel protesters in the West. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators attempted to interrupt a gay pride march in Philadelphia earlier this month, while masked marchers were filmed tearing down a pride flag at another such demonstration in London several months earlier. 

Homosexual acts are punishable by up to ten years in prison in Gaza, and LGBTQ activists claim that harsh extrajudicial punishment – ranging from beatings to torture and beheading – are commonplace in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Israeli officials often portray their country as a bastion of gay rights in an otherwise homophobic region. Pro-Palestinian organizations in turn accuse Israel of “pinkwashing,” defined by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement as a cynical attempt to “project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”

Netanyahu will address the US Congress on July 24. Israel’s war on Hamas – which has claimed more than 37,500 Palestinian lives since October, according to Gaza authorities – has divided the Democratic Party. Some members of the party’s progressive wing – including Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and Senator Elizabeth Warren – have already confirmed that they will not attend the Israeli prime minister’s speech.