So about a week ago, the official Twitter account for the state of Israel at Israel, which by the way, the fact that a country has its own

social media platforms to speak on behalf of that country is bizarre to me, you know, on the official Instagram account of the state of Israel,

they have been going after specific celebrities who have stood in their support for Palestine over the last months, including a series of Instagram stories

posted by at Israel about Gigi Hadid, which resulted in Gigi Hadid's phone number getting leaked and her getting like hundreds and hundreds of death threats, which he ended up sharing a while later.

And I thought the whole thing is just so bizarre because what does the social media manager of the state of Israel expect from Gigi Hadid, who is a Palestinian woman?

But anyway, the official Twitter account for the state of Israel at Israel posted two photos earlier this week with the caption, the first ever pride flag raised in Gaza.

And I'm going to describe to you the two photos. So the first one is an IDF soldier IDF is the Israeli defense force. It's the Israeli military.

It's a male white IDF soldier standing in front of this huge tank and holding what is both in Israeli flag and a pride flag.

And then the other photo is the same soldier standing in what is presumably Gaza in rubble after an air strike that Israel administered onto Gaza holding a rainbow pride flag that is written on in black marker and says in the name of love.

These two images circulated the internet really quickly with an intense response. The kind of Zionist social media activist Eve Barlow posted them on her Instagram with the caption.

For the first time in history, pride flags flew in Gaza today. The IDF is bringing democracy to the Palestinian people. My condolences to all the queers for free Palestine you're losing.

Over the last month, like so many people, I've had a lot of really strong emotions about everything that's happening in Gaza.

And the emotional reaction that these images of an IDF soldier holding a pride flag over rubble in a recently bombed Gaza really just brought something out of me that I did not recognize in myself.

Namely, confusion, you know, I'm thinking, how can you bring pride to a place by decimating it? How can Palestinians have democracy according to Eve Barlow if they're dead?

And as a gay person and as a Jew, I was just wondering, like, was this meant to be a win for people like me, for any gay person?

To use the pride flag, you know, something that was born out of oppression to celebrate the visibility of a community that was systematically made invisible, to use it in the context of war, of conquest, of bombing homes and flattening communities and hospitals, of thousands of dead Palestinian children.

Over the last month, I've had so many people from my personal life, people who I grew up with, people who have never once reached out to me to express concern about the state of queer rights or, you know, the free fall of trans rights in this country over the last two years have been reaching out to me to remind me that, you know, hey, you know, you would be murdered if you went to Gaza as a gay person.

And it's just weird because I live in the U.S. and here in the U.S. over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in legislatures since the start of this year.

You have trans people in Florida who are starting Kickstarter campaigns so they can flee their home state because it's not safe to be trans there anymore.

The Republican Party has made their hatred for queer people and their conflation of queer people with pedophilia, which is very 1970s, by the way, a core pillar of their campaign messaging for 2024.

And I have no desire to compare the state of queer rights here versus those in Palestine or frankly anywhere else.

This is not the oppression Olympics and I for one am extraordinarily aware of my privilege living in a place like New York as a queer person.

...