Queering Palestinian Grievability: Philosemitism and the Cooptation of Queer-Feminist Discourses in Germany

In this presentation, I explore how the frameworks of homophilosemitism and femophilosemitism are deployed within German state philosemitism discourse to render Palestinian lives ungrievable. Homophilosemitism, the alignment of LGBTIQ+ rights with pro-Israel advocacy, and femophilosemitism, the invocation of feminist ideals to justify settler sovereignty, operate to situate Israel as the pinnacle of liberal values, such as gender equality and sexual freedom. These frameworks draw on global queer feminist discourses, positioning Israel as progressive in contrast to a so-called 'uncivilized' and 'backward' Palestinian other. I argue that this cooptation is not merely rhetorical but forms a biopolitical strategy that upholds both settler colonial violence and European bordering politics. By aligning the Israeli state with queer feminist movements, the German state produces a narrative in which Palestinian suffering is depoliticized, racialized, epistemically erased, and ultimately rendered invisible. This process excludes Palestinian lives from the realm of the grievable, contributing to a broader regime of dehumanization under the guise of protecting Jewish life within the 'new anti-Semitism' discourse. Within this discourse, Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, migrants, queer individuals, and some 'bad Jews' are labeled as anti-Semites. Through examples from social media, using the methodology of patchwork discourse ethnography, which traces the migrations and trajectories of a discourse, I critique the complicity of queer feminist discourses with the state by upholding structures of Israeli settler sovereignty and violence. It challenges the ethical implications of such alliances, particularly in how they justify the dispossession and genocide of perceived misogynistic and homophobic populations, thus reinforcing distinctions between grievable and ungrievable lives