Adalah condemns Sheikh Kamal Khatib’s attack on gays

Recent days have seen a heated debate amongst the Arab community in Israel taking place on the Internet, in newspapers and on other social forums about violently homophobic statements published by Sheikh Kamal Khatib, the deputy head of the Islamic Movement in Israel’s northern branch.

Khatib made the statements in a Facebook article on the recent same-sex marriage of the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel. In the article, entitled “You disgust me!!” Sheikh Khatib stated:

“It is striking that suspect organizations in our country, as well as tabloids, and writers for hire, have all advocated for this perversion. To all those people, I wish not good health and sons, but misery, plagues and AIDS, you perverts! You disgust me.”

He continued:

“Western societies have sunk to the lowest of lows, to the point that the people of Ireland voted in a popular referendum [on 23 May 2015] to legalize gay marriage by 62%.

“Though these societies may try to call this marriage, and claim it is a natural phenomenon, and not a perversion but respect for human privacy, they have faltered not in the face of hostile armies, but rather moral degradation and the denial of human nature.”

In Adalah’s view, Khatib’s attack on gay people, in which he uses totally unacceptable hostile, racist and threatening language, lies outside the bounds of any genuine social dialogue. Moreover, Khatib’s stated wish that gays and their supporters get AIDS undoubtedly constitutes a death wish against them, and could be interpreted as qualifying as incitement to murder.

In 2007, Adalah published one of its most important institutional documents – The Democratic Constitution – which rejects “direct or indirect discrimination based on national affiliation, religion, race, sex, color, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability or age.”

Based on this principle, which is rooted in human rights, Adalah regards Khatib’s statements as extremely dangerous, and in violation firstly of the right of an entire group to dignity. His speech further harms the rights of gay people to bodily autonomy, endangering their lives and physical safety. Adalah condemns these statements and any attack on any group on the basis of the identity of its members, whatever the identity may be.