Queer Cinema For Palestine: No Pride in Genocide

Join Queer Cinema for Palestine (QCP) for No Pride in Genocide, a global film event in June 2025, co-organized by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and 100+ partners in 30+ countries.

Queer Cinema for Palestine began as an alternative ethical space for filmmakers who pulled or refused to show their work in the Israeli government-sponsored TLVFest LGBTQ Film Festival. Over the past six years, hundreds of filmmakers have shown their solidarity in response to the boycott call from queer and trans Palestinians.

This year’s program, taking place over June, which marks LGBTQ Pride Month in many countries, continues the festival’s refusal of Israel’s pinkwashing. The collectively curated short film program focuses on the work of queer, Palestinian, and allied artists, across locales, in historic Palestine and the diaspora, identities, lengths, styles and genres (doc-hybrid, experimental, fiction, and animation) to highlight art’s position in resistance and the struggle for liberation.

Check out the whole program here, which will be screening in more than a hundred venues in many, many cities worldwide. You can find the full calendar of screenings by country here.

London: Gaza Biennale Exhibition, May 28–June 1

على أنقاض هذا العالم | Upon the Ruins of the World is the first official exhibition of the Gaza Biennale, presented and co-lead in London by Jinnaah UK, a grassroots collective of artists, activists, and cultural workers in solidarity with the Palestinian people, answering the call of the Gaza Biennale, organising in the UK in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Over 50 Gazan artists—whose work was born in siege, in mourning, in survival—will be exhibited together for the first time anywhere in the world. It is remembrance. It is rebellion. It is rebirth.

Since Gaza Biennale’s announcement and Jinnaah UK’s partnership in November 2024, the Gaza Biennale – Jinnaah UK has unfolded across public space—in projections and bilingual interventions on the walls of major institutions, transforming the city into a living archive of cultural resistance.

Now, for the first time, this work enters a dedicated exhibition space. Through installations, live-streamed conversations, talks, workshops, participatory works, and multilingual programming in both Arabic and English, this landmark event invites audiences into the heart of the Gaza Biennale.

In a time of increasing hostility toward Arab, Muslim and Palestinian identities, the exhibition’s bilingual nature is deliberate: to resist invisibility, assert presence, and honour linguistic and cultural integrity.

Highlights of the public program include live discussions and workshops with artists in Gaza, topics include art, race, fragmented Palestinian identity and disability, and conversations on cultural labour under siege. Guest speakers include Yara Eid and others, including artists from inside Gaza.

In the absence of institutional courage, this exhibition affirms what communities already know: that people rise, and art builds worlds. It is a call to the UK cultural sector—to uplift Palestinian artists, sever ties with complicit institutions, and speak out against genocide.

You can find the full schedule of events and purchase tickets here.

London: William Blake in Words and Song, Raising Funds for Medical Aid for Palestinians, 30 May

Almost 200 years since his death, the radical visionary art and poetry of William Blake still provokes and resonates. This fundraiser performance centres on Blake’s words, delivered by four extraordinary actors, Julie Christie, Will Keen, Khalid Abdalla, as well as singer Susheela Raman’s vibrant new musical settings of Blake, performed with co-composer Sam Mills. Author William Dalrymple will also be joining the event.

The performance also includes work by the acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, including an Arabic translation/translocation of Blake’s much sung ‘Jerusalem’. In addition, Blake’s visual art appears in an intense visual flow created with image curator Stephen Ellcock and Sam Sharples, video designer for the Welsh National Opera.

All ticket revenue and donations collected via the online fundraiser campaign and at the event go to Medical Aid for Palestinians, which provides life-saving care to Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and living as refugees.

You can find out more and reserve tickets here.

Al-Rifaq: New Publication for Arabic Political Commentary in Translation

Earlier this year, a collective based in Aotearoa New Zealand launched Al-Rifaq, a new platform to make Arabic political commentary, analysis, and theory accessible to Western and English-speaking readership.

Al-Rifaq publishes a translation of a new piece every other week on their Substack, with a focus on contemporary or recent analysis produced by the radical left and revolutionary currents of Palestine and the Arab world. This focus is based on a belief that the ongoing and unfolding war on the region is of world historical significance, and that the time is ripe for a renewed internationalist ethos and orientation in political organising, as evidenced by the worldwide Palestine solidarity movement.

There is a gap between the political discourses of the radical left in the Arab and Western worlds. The work of Al-Rifaq aims to bridge this gap and challenge the solidarity movements of the West, which must, we believe, come to understand Al-Qadhiyyah Al-Falastiniyah (القضية الفلسطينية)—the Palestinian question—on terms that are consistent with that of the Palestinian and Arab masses and their historic mission of liberation.

Below you can read an excerpt from a recent essay they published: an excursus on statehood as imperial capture and the broadening horizon of Palestinian liberation, written last year by the Palestinian writer Nidal Khalaf and newly translated by Gaza-based translator Mohammed Elabadsa.

The concept of a “Palestinian state” is far from novel: its meaning and form have consistently been shaped by the dynamics of conflict in the region and the prevailing balance of power. Indeed, the inaugural formal proposal emerged in UN Resolution 181 of 1947, a partition plan fundamentally designed to secure Zionist control over strategic ports, coastal regions, and the Negev. This initial iteration was merely a precursor to the “Gaza-Jericho” model, which subsequently laid the groundwork for American-brokered political arrangements. It is patently clear that the architects of the Zionist project would never countenance a Palestinian state unless it rigidly adhered to Israel’s security diktats and reinforced its dominance over all peoples in the region.

Considering the stark imbalance of power at the time, this initial proposal was undeniably a political deception aimed at legitimising the ethnic cleansing of 1948. The second iteration, the “West Bank-Gaza” model, was embraced by the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) leadership through the 1993 Oslo Accords. This move, however, fundamentally contradicted the core tenets of the modern Palestinian revolution. Despite the significant political and security concessions made by successive PLO leaders, from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas, and those poised to succeed him, Oslo morphed into a political trap designed to dismantle the First Intifada and facilitate the gradual expansion of Israeli settlements under the guise of Palestinian self-rule. Over the past decade, the idea of a “Palestinian state” has become a contradiction in terms because, within the two-state framework, it has only succeeded in facilitating the relentless proliferation of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem alongside a suffocating siege on Gaza, whose aim is nothing less than the elimination of the resistance—either through gradual strangulation or through one decisive blow.

From this perspective, the reason for American and Western insistence on this idea of a “Palestinian state” becomes clear. This concept—which has been tirelessly promoted by Oslo elites and the media apparatus of American military bases as being a “recognition of Palestinian rights”—must be critically understood within the broader context of the ongoing colonial project and its inherent conditions. Ultimately, it entails the establishment of a “Palestinian” entity in name only, which by necessity remains subservient to Zionist objectives.

The most substantial outcome the PLO leadership secured in exchange for abandoning core Palestinian principles and actively assisting in the suppression of the First Intifada was the Palestinian Authority—an entity that materialised after the PLO’s 1982 defeat through the clear accommodationist path its leadership had adopted since 1974. Thus, a direct and undeniable correlation exists between the rise of the Palestinian state idea and the shifting balance of power against the Palestinian people. The American-promoted Palestinian state is, in essence, mere “bait” offered to solidify Zionist dominance over Palestine in exchange for superficial gains for collaborators overseeing the insidious process of slow-burn ethnic cleansing.

The Palestinian State envisioned within the American framework is not a genuine pathway to freedom but rather a form of capitulation, prioritising the superficial trappings of statehood-flags, anthems, and international recognition over the fundamental and non-negotiable goal of liberation.

Read the rest here, and consider subscribing to Al-Rifaq—all funds collected through subscriptions go to commissioning writers and translators in the region.

Book of the Week

“Nobody is ever going to forget Karim Kattan’s intimate vision of Palestine, seen through unbridled, brand new eyes.”

L’Humanité

In The Palace on the Higher Hill, Faysal receives a mysterious letter about the death of aunt he can't remember. Leaving his lover and his life in Europe behind, he returns to the village of his birth in Palestine and to his family's extraordinary, deserted house, the palace on the higher hill. With a backdrop of violence and the permanent threat from settlers, Faysal wanders the once-lavish rooms as characters from the past return to shed light on his family story and on the story of his people.

In beautiful, angry prose translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman, Karim Kattan introduces us to an intimate Palestine of the imagination where dreams and nightmares are in constant conflict. With hints of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Brideshead Revisited, he gives a nuanced, deeply moving vision of the tragedy of war and a picture of his homeland that feels entirely new to English-speaking readers.

The Palace on the Higher Hill was winner of the 2021 Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and of a 2024 English PEN Award. It is out now from Foundry Editions.

Media Roundup

In a Village in the West Bank – A new poem from Naomi Shihab Nye: “I could see stone walls behind him. / Hear his parents speaking Arabic in the background, / a spoon clinking a bowl. I felt homesick for my whole life.”

Extermination as Negotiation: Understanding Israel’s Strategy in Gaza – “Whether it's total conquest or managed containment,” Abdaljawad Omar argues, “Israel doesn't have a single grand strategy for Gaza, but it uses the possibility of both to prolong the war.” 

The Destruction of Khalet a-Daba’ – A photo essay about the village Khalet a-Daba’ before and after its demolition by Israeli occupation forces, the largest village demolition ever carried out in Masaffer Yatta since the Israeli Supreme Court greenlit the ethnic cleansing of Masaffer Yatta in 2022.

We Knocked Until Our Hands Broke – Responding from Gaza to Ghassan Kanafani’s famous question at the end of Men in the Sun, “Why didn’t they knock on the walls of the tank?,” Alaa Alqaisi concludes “The tank was always going to be a tomb. Not because no one heard. But because those who heard looked away.”

How Israel's Trail of Destruction Aims to Reshape the West Bank – Mariam Barghouti reports on how Israel’s escalation of its military operations in the West Bank has displaced more than fifty thousand Palestinians and redrawn the map of the West Bank.

Will Israel Expand Its Assault on the West Bank? – Reporting from Nablus, which is undergoing the greatest campaign of forced displacement since 1967, Zena Al Tahhan argues that the threat of escalation has already arrived to the West Bank.

Learning to Be Free – Joel Suarez argues that the Palestine solidarity work of university students is restoring the militancy of faculty unions and other university labor formations in the United States.

“I carry their grave wherever I go": Gaza’s Endless Grief and Unknown Bodies – Husam Maarouf writes about how Israel has prohibited the entry of DNA testing kits and equipment into Gaza, making it impossible for unidentifiable remains to be returned to their families for funeral rites.

The Devastation of Lebanon's Southern Border Towns – Hanna Davis reports from the south of Lebanon, where the ruins of buildings destroyed by Israel still mark the landscape and much of the area has become depopulated.

Gaza: Starvation and Exile – Sari Bashi writes about how Israel has weaponized starvation not just to immiserate and kill the people of Gaza, but also to make leaving Gaza their only prospective option for survival.

On the Political Economy of Carceral Regimes and the Struggles of Palestinian Prisoners – Lama El Khatib has a wide-ranging conversation with Basil Farraj on the multiple forms of carcerality at play in the Zionist occupation and on how Palestinian prisoners are the raw material for Israel’s global economic traffic in surveillance and security technologies.

Four Poems – New poems by Dalia Taha, translated by Sara Elkamel: “Poetry must keep eternity / from slipping through its fingers; / it should carry its bite mark shamelessly on its neck.”

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