President Donald Trump mocked “Gays for Palestine” activists at a campaign rally Monday night, highlighting a threat depicted in The Daily Wire’s new film, “Run Hide Fight: Infidels.”
“I saw it today and I said, wait a minute. Gays for Palestine. Do you know what they do to gay people in that part of the world?” he asked the crowd at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. “They throw you off the top of a building.”
“Let’s send them over someday to negotiate,” Trump added, referring to the pro-Palestinian activists. “Let’s see. You’ll never see them again.”
His remarks echoed a scene in “Run Hide Fight: Infidels,” in which radical Islamic terrorists hijack a liberal college’s pro-Palestinian encampment.
Two leftist students — a young man and a young woman — help facilitate the takeover without understanding the consequences. When a terrorist suggests the two are a couple, the young man responds, “I’m gay.” The terrorist then throws him off a roof as the young woman watches in horror.
ISIS has carried out executions of men accused of homosexuality by throwing them from buildings in Iraq and Syria. If the men survived the landing, they were stoned to death.
In Iran, homosexual activity is criminalized under the country’s Islamic penal code, with punishments that include lashing and, for certain offenses, execution. The law applies to both men and women, according to the Human Dignity Trust.
LGBT travelers have also faced restrictions elsewhere in the region. In July, Turkish authorities blocked an LGBT cruise ship from docking in its port.
The ship’s CEO and President Rich Campbell called the decision “stunning.”
“It’s pretty stunning, to be honest. I mean, and the reasoning behind it is that it’s a gay group,” said Campbell. “It’s very concerning to me when a country decides they can pick and choose which tourists are allowed in and which are not.”
Supporters of queer solidarity with Palestinians argue that opposing homophobia and supporting Palestinian rights go hand-in-hand.
Sa’ed Atshan, a Swarthmore College professor and author of the 2020 book “Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique,” acknowledged homophobia within Palestinian society in an interview with Them, while arguing that it is not unique to Palestinians.
“Homophobia is not unique to Palestinian society. It exists in most parts of the world, including in Israeli society, as well as here in the United States. It’s a near-universal phenomenon, unfortunately,” he said.
“In order for us to deal with questions of how queer people are treated in Palestine, we have to address the broader landscape of the denial of freedom to Palestinians more generally speaking,” Atshan added.
However, in the United States and Israel, people who identify as LGBT are protected and even celebrated. Israel formally decriminalized consensual same-sex activity in 1988 and has legal protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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