During the past two months, Palestinians have endured another catastrophic genocide. Over 21,000 Palestinians were martyred. Thousands more who have sustained life-threatening injuries are barely surviving without access to emergency medical care. 1.9 million people have been displaced from their homes and are now facing the imminent threat of forcible expulsion to Egypt. Palestinians are systematically being kidnapped and tortured en masse and an end to the bombardment is nowhere in sight.
Palestinians across the world have also been subjects of racist and dehumanizing media campaigns created to manufacture consent for this genocide and discredit our movement for liberation.
Among the many racist, colonial, and sexist tropes animating Zionist propaganda is the age-old Orientalist characterization of Palestinian men as bloodthirsty terrorists, rapists, savages, and loveless monsters who use their children as human shields and oppress Palestinian women.
As feminists, we know that Orientalist tropes about [our] men are manufactured for colonial and imperial aims and are normalized as truth in racist imaginations. Yet even among those who empathize with the Palestinian struggle come endless commemorations of Palestinian women and children absent recognition of the suffering and death of Palestinian men. This dangerously conditions the public to believe that Palestinian men are not worthy of grief or even love.
It is not our interest to counter the racist narratives made about Palestinian men and boys. That would equate to trying to prove our humanity to those actively erasing us. But as Palestinian feminists, we feel compelled to affirm that Palestinian men and boys are our fathers, brothers, sons, grandfathers, uncles, cousins, and partners - they are our family, and we love them.
Palestinian men are our friends, our comrades in struggle, our teachers and protectors, our spiritual guides and healers - and we love them. They are suffering the injury of this ongoing Nakba, physically, spiritually, and emotionally alongside us - and we love them. They are navigating grief, trauma, and pain and we love them. They are practicing defiance, resistance, and steadfastness - and we love them. They are freedom fighters - and we love them. They are full beings with contradictions - and we love them.
Palestinian men are our kin. We stand with them against all those justifing and enacting violence upon their bodies, souls, and dignity. We refuse to allow them to be rendered disposable to the affective world where Palestinian children and women are given some - even if minimal -recognition. As feminists, we want the world to know that we love our Palestinian men, have never stopped loving them, and will never stop loving them.
Our feminist vision advocates for breaking intimate and state cycles of violence by centering and transforming home, family, and community spaces into sites of care and healing. We acknowledge the immeasurable sacrifices and hardships Palestinian men experience caused by Zionism and the relentless hope and courage they continue to foster within US. We uphold radical love as an act of liberation that grounds our collective survival and resistance.
