First Hawamesh Event in 2015  - Tuesday February 3rd @ 19:00
Our inaugural Hawamesh event for 2015 will take place on Tuesday, February 3rd at alQaws office in Haifa. 

Entitled “Do Local Anti-Pinkwashing Discourses Perpetuate Structures of ‘Homophobia’ by Presenting a Misleading Facade of Queer Realities in Palestine?”, the event will follow up on recent community conversations raising serious questions about the potential impact and unintended consequences of efforts and strategies to expose Israel’s use of gay rights to mask systematic disregard and violation of the human rights of Palestinians. 

For local queer communities, these questions arise in comparison to the (visible) effort to counter homophobia in Palestine. The discussion will focus on three main questions: (1) Does the anti-pinkwashing activism diminish the fight against “homophobia”?; (2) Does the anti-pinkwashing discourse in the western media present a misleading facade of queer realities in Palestine, and to what extent, should we discuss “homophobia” in Palestine within the anti-pinkwashing discourse ?; and (3) Do the strategies to expose Israel’s pinkwashing policies, should be similar to strategies used to fight “homophobia” inside the Palestinian society.?

Hawamesh ("margins" in Arabic), is a Haifa-based monthly discussion forum about issues related to sexual and gender diversity in Palestinian society. True to its name, the Hawamesh forum takes topics widely seen as belonging to the margins of mainstream Palestinian culture, such as LGBTQ issues, and puts them in the center stage. In this way, Hawamesh aims to fill a void in the mainstream discourse by connecting topics traditionally considered internally exclusive to the LGBT community to a broadly relevant social and political context.

The event is in Arabic. To join this event on Facebook, click here.