Comments on: Marginalized groups that Qatari PR would rather you not see

By: Rafael

Rafael — Mon, 07 May 2012 06:04:53 +0000

I don’t think Israeli white phosphorus protects Palestinian gays.

By: Mareli

Mareli — Sat, 05 May 2012 20:28:32 +0000

Palestinian is correct when he says most Palestinians are intolerant of homosexuality, which is why so many gay Palestinians have been hurt by the difficulties encountered by Arabs trying to enter Israel. Ironically, gay Palestinians need Israel in order to survive more than many Jews.

By: Rowan Berkeley

Rowan Berkeley — Sat, 05 May 2012 09:23:00 +0000

From a serious anti-imperialist point of view, gay interests, like women’s interests, are extremely problematic because they cut diagonally across both national and class interests, creating fifth columns of sympathisers in unpredictable places, and acting as liberal stalking horses. Almost invariably, these sympathisers are sacrificed in the long run, having served their purpose of destabilising the targeted regimes and weakening their defense against liberal imperialist penetration. Minority ethnic and religious groups can be used in the same way; for instance, never in history have the Kurds, as a national group, won any of their substantial goals, least of all national self-determination. Over and over again, they have been used and cast aside afterwards like the proverbial used condoms. And it’s the same with gays and feminists, or as the current jargon has it, “LGBT people”. One is not doing them a favour when one adopts them as mascots.

By: max

max — Sat, 05 May 2012 08:51:25 +0000

Roee, thanks for the post.
From Palestinian I understand that the homosexuality topic is a deep cultural (Muslim? Arab?) one (taboo). What about the other part? Is it – in your opinion – rather one related to the huge social gap specific in that area or is it also wider spread?
.
But I also have to reinforce Palestinian’s comment: it’s not only as he says “this magazine supposedly covers our conflict”, it in fact covers almost exclusively supposedly Israeli crimes against Palestinians. So bringing up such stories risks diluting the message and bring up unhealthy thoughts such as the quality of Bob Simon’s report on Christians in Palestine or explain the reluctance of most secular Israelis to the one-state idea.
We can’t afford such perspectives, they’re simply counter productive.

By: Palestinian

Palestinian — Sat, 05 May 2012 06:18:45 +0000

@ Roee , I wasnt even discussing the percentage of gay men(which may be wrong)You ignored my first comment and you jumped to the second one “to defend gay rights” although I wasnt even talking about it .That Qatari is cheating on his wife and his Lebanese boy is part of it .I cant sympathize with such a lovely couple ,and fyi classy prostitution is well known there (so instead of a one-night stand let it be one year )Culture impositions dont tell you to cheat on your spouse.Divorce is an option.I think you had to bring up this story to provoke people to comment on your article ,its a taboo and a very “hot” one,and you know it.Millions of people support our cause although they know very well homosexuality isnt accepted by the vast majority of Palestinians esp people who live among the Palestinians.How silly to connect between defending the Palestinian cause (in case you do)and denying the mentality of the people you support.Its like if you dont adopt my values I wont support you ,really !Then dont …

By: Roee Ruttenberg

Roee Ruttenberg — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:22:42 +0000

@Palestinian, ten percent of men are said to be gay … even in the Arab world, where due to culture impositions many gay men are still married while maintaining extra-marital, discrete same-sex relations on the side. Your assumption that the Qatari man pays Salim is presumptuous at best and offensively ignorant at worst. (And, for the record, it’s incorrect.) Additionally, your comment “I wish them the worst of luck” reveals an unsympathetic nature. I imagine you’ll find it very hard to get people to support your plight against injustice if you aren’t willing to do the same for others. I encourage you to think about that.

By: Roee Ruttenberg

Roee Ruttenberg — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:18:34 +0000

@Florence, you are always welcome to send opinion columns to the 972 editors. They are welcome. But I’m pretty sure if people wanted to read JPost’s stories, they would go to JPost.

By: Rowan Berkeley

Rowan Berkeley — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:46:15 +0000

There’s only one english-language arabic web news source I visit every morning, and that’s al-Akhbar. I assume its english-language site omits quite a lot of interesting things that appear on its arabic-language site, but that can’t be helped. Al-Akhbar has a great deal that’s of pretty immediate relevance to Palestinians, and Arabs generally, I would say. Sometimes I can see its journalists subtly making fun of the government censorship that does exist in Lebanon (for instance, they cannot criticise the security establishment directly, so they have to say sarcastically, “our excellent national security has hardly been marred by the more than twenty bombings in the last two months” or whatever; but really, they do very well. They maintain a sort of balance which is distinctively Lebanese; you couldn’t do that anywhere else. Not in Egypt, for instance. Jadaliyya is run by young left-wing US Arab academics, and it shows.

By: Palestinian

Palestinian — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:26:25 +0000

Nobody can deny the list of human rights violations in the Arab world from East to West ,discrimination ,prejudice….you name it but this magazine supposedly covers our conflict not Qatar nor Saudi Arabia.That Lebanese gay man (Saleem)and his unfaithful Qatari “partner” I wish them the worst of luck,I wonder how much he pays him.

By: florence

florence — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:38:01 +0000

This isn’t related to this piece, but I had to post it somewhere as 972 only ever posts negative news regarding the state of Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=268663