Gay Palestinians Face 'Pinkwashing'

Life is no party for gay Palestinians. True, they can dance the night away in Jaffa, a city bordering Tel Aviv, but come morning, they face prejudice at home and the bitter fact that gay-friendly Israel won't accept their applications for asylum, Global Post reports. Advocates call it "pinkwashing": the demonizing of Arab and Palestinian views on LGBTs, while revering Israel for its progressive attitudes. “Gay Palestinians are caught in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” reads a report from Tel Aviv University.

“They are persecuted in the occupied territories by militant groups, Palestinian security forces and members of their own families," the report goes on. "When they flee, they are hunted inside Israel by police who seek to return them to the territories." On the brighter side, Israeli and Palestinian gays do mix, sometimes seeking asylum abroad as couples, and an LGBT center in Tel Aviv has reached out to some 900 gay Palestinian refugees. But "we are not in their shoes," says a staffer. "Their suffering is their suffering." (More gays stories.)