In this afterword I engage the essays of this special issue by highlighting the challenges military occupation, racism, and homophobia pose for discussions of queer issues in the Palestine/Israel context and for Palestinian queer activism. I argue that the visibility/invisibility of Palestinian queers in Israeli public discourse is overdetermined by a colonial agenda that seeks to suppress Palestinian national rights. After discussing instances of the queer demonization of Palestinians (the rumor that Yaser Arafat died of AIDS, for example, or the representation of the demonic Palestinian lover in Eytan Fox's film The Bubble), I investigate the intimate connection between homophobia and the Israeli use of collaborators as a tool of military control. I conclude by calling for a theoretical paradigm that is attentive to the complex lived reality of Palestinian queers.

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Duke University Press
2010
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