Growing up queer in Palestine made me want to capture life around me with a camera.
As I navigated the social environment around me, not knowing when and how I could fit in, it was often easy to find an escape through the visualization of my surroundings. It was therapeutic when I was young and still did not know how to reconcile my gender and sexual identities with my cultural upbringing. While this could be taken to mean that there is an intrinsic clash between queer identities and Palestinian culture, I’ve since learned, despite the reality of homophobia, my identities could coexist.
Despite the diversity of queer Palestinian experiences, Western media reduces our stories to incidents of violence and death. Though some queer Palestinians do experience homophobia, these experiences are often comparable with those in the West.
I come from a rather conventional average Palestinian family in the south of Palestine-Israel. Since I came out years ago, my family never showed signs of violence, despite being devout Muslims and culturally conservative. Their shocked reactions do not differ from many Western families’ reactions to young people coming out. My family is proud of me, and I still talk to them regularly and I see them for a whole month every summer. My nephews and nieces count the days to my return every year.
As a teacher at two high schools with entirely Palestinian student bodies and staff, I came out to both principals and many of the staff in 2013 and 2019. I was embraced and supported at both workplaces. Queer Palestinians are loved by many in their communities. When we are rejected, the queer Palestinian experience replicates the global homophobic status quo. Some might assume that my status as an Israeli would protect me from homophobic violence; but if I did experience such violence, the Israeli authorities would not be there to save me.
I don’t seek safety from police or other state authorities as a queer Palestinian man. Instead, I negotiate my existence in my own community and society. I am an expert on my people, I come from them, and that, no one can underestimate.
As a queer child and teenager, I watched captivated as my mom embroidered her own traditional Palestinian dresses (‘Thobes’). As part of experiencing Palestine, walking around Palestinian markets has always meant being able to admire Palestinian women’s legacy of beauty and creativity. Old Akka, 2018.
Whether it is in Jerusalem, Nazareth, Akka, or Yaffa the alleys and markets of the old cities of Palestine are filled with life and detail. Yet, the sight of closed doors—whether due to economic or political reasons—echoes a struggle for home that resonates deeply with me as a queer Palestinian. Just as these markets face challenges that disrupt their stability and community, I too grapple with what defines ‘home’ for me, both in Palestine and abroad. The shared experience of navigating this struggle makes Palestine a queer issue, as both queer individuals and Palestine itself wrestle with the meaning and preservation of home. Old Jerusalem, 2018.
The flamboyant, young, queer version of me loved dancing and listening to Arabic music; acquiring new cassettes brought me so much joy every time. My older cousin would let me dance with her despite the critique that some older women in the family made; they thought that letting me dance was ruining my masculinity. Shopping for cassettes is now a memory of experiencing Palestine, but it is also a queer memory. The joy of music through these cassettes and the dancing with my cousin challenged gender binaries. Yaffa, 2019.
Not many have discovered the powers of healing and resilience one can assemble in the blankness of deserts. By driving, walking, and hiking through the Naqab desert, witnessing the diversity of its landscapes, I learned to embrace my queerness as an adolescent and young adult. Ramon Carter, 2021.
In my younger years I thought I could never find Palestinians who would embrace my queerness. My friend Warda (Arabic for ‘Flower’) approached me on a school day on the campus of Ben Gurion University when I was nineteen years old, offering conversation, allyship, and support of my queerness from the heart of the Palestinian society in the South. This image taken during a hike captures our invaluable friendship and our looking into the future as we pursue our dreams. Warda’s experience as a heterosexual woman and mine as a queer cisgender man in our community are rather similar; our bond allowed us to sustain our resilience as we kept challenging our environment. Our friendship has been the most powerful through the intimacy of our conversation. Northern Naqab, 2015.
Palestinian women are successful and innovative entrepreneurs. This is the workspace of a Palestinian woman at Desert Daughter, a brand that produces cosmetic and skincare products made entirely from local desert plants. They also host group workshops to empower local women and share their culture with tourists. I took this image when I visited Desert Daughter with a group of my female Palestinian high school students. Tal Elsabe’a, Naqab, 2019.
The smell of many herbs, whether freshly homegrown or dried, is integral to life in Palestine. The smell of sage, mint, za’atar, chamomile, and other plants are part of most households. This image brings alive the smells and memories from the times when my mom embarked on the process of drying fresh herbs. Tal Elsabe’a, Naqab, 2019.
Dumped at the shores of the city of Haifa along the Mediterranean, this burned couch symbolizes the struggles of many Palestinians in mixed cities within the Green Line borders. The couch—partially burned and left in disarray on the beach—visually interrupts the expectations of a modern, orderly cityscape, highlighting the chaos and disorder that often mark Palestinian experiences in these areas. Figuratively, the couch’s presence echoes the persistence of Palestinians who despite facing relentless attempts at displacement, remain rooted in these mixed cities. Similarly, the emergence of a queer Palestinian community in the city of Haifa with safe queer spaces holds an emancipatory power. Palestinians in Haifa have been holding on to the queer coffee shops, bars, parties, gathering, and even activist organizations that ease the burden of the struggles many queer Palestinians face. These spaces and communities bring many queer people joy and hope than this burnt couch. Haifa, 2015.
My colleague and I organized a photography tour with our students when I was teaching high school English in the village of Um Batin in the Spring of 2013. The child here is playing on the initial growth of wheat plants, historically grown by Palestinians in the South, showing that the Naqab is not as barren as many think. Since 1948, Palestinians in the Naqab lost 88% of their lands, which have been declared state land by Israel. Because of this process, and since I was a child, sights such as this playing child have become scarcer over the years. This outdoor space and the possibility to engage in such playfulness, to me, is also queer, because queerness is being in one’s natural environment uninterrupted. Um Batin, 2013.
Desert snails are a wonderful detail of experiencing Palestine, especially the Naqab desert, and do not often get mentioned. My childhood memories include collecting their fossils, cleaning them, painting them, and decorating with them. Engaging with them creatively is a colorful blissful memory I cheer as I think of the meaning and signs of what it means to be a queer Palestinian. Naqab, 2022.
Herding is not uncommon to southern Palestine, despite it being perceived as arid. Imagining the varied beautiful sceneries of the Naqab is impossible without the herds of sheep, camels, cows, and the shepherds and dogs leading them. Because queerness means holding onto one’s peacefulness in the midst of crisis, seeing that these serene sceneries have done the same for the Naqab in the midst of economic, political, and social changes, they emerge as a queer memory to me. Um Batin, 2013.
The older generation of women in the Naqab cover their heads with a large piece of white fabric that extends behind most of the back of their bodies. It is called ‘Shash’. This image of a torn part of a Shash at the outskirts of the village of Hura shows the powerful presence of this generation of Palestinian women in the Naqab. Hura, 2017.
Nighttime can be unique and hypnotizing everywhere in Palestine, but especially in Nazareth. It is almost as though the presence of people and their energy come more alive than they do during daytime. One can enjoy nighttime snacks on the side of the road with a strong sense of shared community in a city filled with struggles where tourists, mostly here for the Christian attractions, often disregard. Nazareth, 2018.
