While an academic work on LGBTQ Palestinians, Sa’ed Atshan’s “Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique,” is also deeply personal account of coming of age between homophobia and Israel’s occupation.
Swarthmore professor Sa’ed Atshan addresses the controversy surrounding a speech he was scheduled to give at a Quaker private school that was cancelled under pressure from parents: “The most difficult moment for me since the talk’s cancellation came after speaking at an American Friends Service Committee event. A Friends’ Central student approached me, sharing that she had come imagining a “monster” based on what she was told about Palestinians. She was genuinely surprised to see that was not the case and felt comfortable approaching me. It took a lot for me to restrain my tears.”
The BDS call represents as close to a consensus as possible within Palestinian civil society. It targets academic institutions, including the Muslim Leadership Institute of the Shalom Hartman Institute, which has now sent two small cohorts of Muslim-American leaders to Israel/Palestine. MLI’s stated purpose is to shape the understanding of these cohorts with regards to Judaism and Zionism.