San Francisco Queer Group Has Linked LGBTQ Politics to Palestinian Solidarity for More Than Two Decades

Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, known as QUIT!, is a San Francisco Bay Area queer political action group whose work sits at the intersection of LGBTQ activism and Palestinian solidarity. Founded in early 2001 by a member of LAGAI-Queer Insurrection, the group has advocated for boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israel while opposing what it describes as Israel’s “pinkwashing.”

In QUIT!’s framework, pinkwashing is the promotion of Israel’s LGBTQ rights record to bolster support for policies the group says harm Palestinians. The organization has also condemned what it characterizes as ethnic cleansing and described Zionism as a form of racism. Its stated goals include backing the Palestinian right of return, calling for Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories and supporting the broader Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

The group’s activism has included participation in regional and national Palestine solidarity efforts. In February 2002, QUIT! took part in the National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement at the University of California, Berkeley. Several months later, in June, it initiated an anti-war contingent at San Francisco’s LGBTQ Pride celebration under the banner “No pride in occupation.” The contingent marched in solidarity with Palestinians, bringing the issue into a citywide LGBTQ event.

That approach reflects a longstanding debate within queer politics: whether LGBTQ rights should be discussed separately from a government’s military and treatment of minority populations, or whether rights-based messaging can be used to deflect attention from those policies. QUIT! takes the latter position when discussing Israel, arguing that queer communities should not allow LGBTQ inclusion to serve as public-relations cover for Palestinian dispossession or occupation.

The group’s position has also drawn criticism. Opponents have questioned how its focus on Palestinian liberation addresses LGBTQ rights in the State of Palestine. That criticism points to a tension that has followed queer-led Palestine solidarity organizing: activists may support Palestinian rights while facing questions about the treatment of LGBTQ people under Palestinian authorities and within Palestinian society.

For San Francisco’s LGBTQ political history, QUIT! represents one strand of activism that connects local Pride organizing with international human-rights campaigns. Its work shows how some Bay Area queer organizers have treated foreign policy, militarism and racial justice as LGBTQ issues—not merely as matters separate from the local movement. The group’s campaigns remain politically contested, but its organizing has helped make the relationship between queer identity, Palestine solidarity and the politics of representation part of San Francisco’s broader activist conversation.

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Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://web.archive.org/web/20070929095552/http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=2233 - https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/free-palestine-rally-sf-18528116.php - https://www.advocate.com/politics/2009/01/28/queers-palestine - https://web.archive.org/web/20121105064513/http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/resist0905.php - https://web.archive.org/web/20070820041155/http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=1838 - https://web.archive.org/web/20121105064626/http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/pride0711.php Image rights Original illustrative artwork created from story keywords. It is not a documentary photograph.