Pinkwashing, Homonationalism, and Israel–Palestine: The Conceits of Queer Theory and the Politics of the Ordinary

Abstract This paper offers a critique of the theory of homonationalism, which has become virtually hegemonic in contemporary queer thought and activism. Some theorists have tried to distance homonationalism from its popular/activist manifestation of “pinkwatching”, which refers to the increasingly vocal efforts of queer anti‐occupation activists to expose the Israeli government's efforts to “pinkwash” its treatment of Palestinians by touting its record on gay rights. The paper argues, however, that both suffer from fundamental conceptual flaws and ultimately have more to do with the contexts in which they circulate—“gay” cities in the US and Europe—than Israel–Palestine. The paper suggests a political and analytical shift away from the totalizing theory of homonationalism—and the simplistic critiques of pinkwashing inspired by it—to a more complex and contextualized focus on the ways in which ordinary bodies are regulated in their movements through time and space.