The Blogs: Pride Goeth Before a Fall: Queers for Palestine? Really?

Another Islamist terror attack – this time on a Pride parade. A van plowed into the Berlin Pride Festival killing one woman and injuring 29 others. The driver was 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots.

Ballout had traveled via Turkey to Lebanon in 2025 with the aim of going to Syria to join the IS (Islamic State). While in Lebanon he made contact with several men he thought were members of the terrorist organization. He was arrested in Lebanon and sentenced by a military court. He received three months imprisonment for offenses including incitement to religious and sectarian conflict.

After completing his sentence, Ballout returned to Germany. He was immediately arrested at the Berlin airport. In May, a juvenile court in Berlin convicted him of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state. He was also convicted of publishing IS propaganda on his Instagram account.

The court handed down a suspended sentence of one year and ten months in youth custody, which Berlin prosecutors had appealed. The court said it took into account the months Ballout had spent in pre-trial detention in Germany and Lebanon. It also said it considered that Ballout had confessed to the crimes, appeared to distance himself from the terrorist group, and no actual threat had ever materialized.

Ballout was released from detention pending the appeal. In the meantime, he was participating in a deradicalization program. He had attended two meetings. On the evening of the third, he skipped the meeting and plowed into the Pride Festival instead.

Germany’s Interior Minister, Alexander Dobrindt, said Ballout “had previously drawn attention to himself through a high volume of criminal offenses, radicalization, and affiliation with the Islamist scene.”

So, the public asks – why wasn’t he in prison? Or at least being watched?

Ironically, even though the identity and prison record of the killer was known, Alfonso Pantisano, Berlin’s LGBTQ+ affairs commissioner, stated in interviews that the Queer community remains deeply afraid that right-wing movements intend to strip away their progress and equality.

Another Pride activist spoke at a vigil in Berlin the day after the car-ramming attack. She said, “I had hoped that the attacker was not a foreigner, but a white Christian person.” But it doesn’t work like that. It’s hard to understand how the Gay community can align itself with radical Islamists.

Do they really not know how Islamists treat Gays in the Middle East?

The Muslim Brotherhood and those from Salafist backgrounds depict homosexuality as a perversion and a grave sin. Their anti-Gay rhetoric often focuses on warning the Muslim community about engaging in homosexual acts while evoking the divine punishments that await those who commit the crime.

Jihadist groups adopt more extreme positions on homosexuality and justify killing those who engage in it. The Islamic State has been particularly ruthless in its persecution of homosexuals. They have public executions of individuals accused of being Gay and broadcast them. Sometimes firing squad, sometimes beheading, sometimes the “criminal” is thrown from a tall building.

Punishment for homosexuality differs in various Muslim countries. For example:

Saudi Arabia – Imposes severe penalties, including potential death sentences or long-term imprisonment and hefty fines based on judicial interpretations.
Yemen, Mauritania, and Qatar – Maintain legal frameworks where same-sex acts or extramarital sexual offenses can theoretically carry the death penalty or harsh corporal punishment under specific statutory condition.
Iran – Prescribes the death penalty under its penal code for male same-sex intercourse alongside floggings for lesser acts of intimacy.

It’s not as if these attacks haven’t happened before.

Oslo, Norway (2022): An Islamist extremist opened fire outside a Gay bar and a nearby club during Pride celebrations, killing two people and injuring 21 others.
Dresden, Germany (2020): An ISIS supporter carried out a knife attack against a Gay couple, resulting in one death and one severe injury.
Orlando, FL (2016): A gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others at the Pulse Nightclub, a local Gay gathering spot, pledging allegiance to the leader of ISIS during the attack.

My question to the Gay community: Are you sure you’re on the right side? How many deaths or injuries does the community need before it rethinks its position? Israel provides the most extensive legal protections and social recognition for LGBTQ+ individuals in the Middle East.

Israeli Legal Rights and Protections for LGBTQ+ Individuals:

Decriminalization: Consensual same-sex sexual activity was effectively decriminalized by a court ruling in 1963 and formally repealed from the penal code in 1988.
Anti-Discrimination: Workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation has been illegal since 1992, and hate crime laws cover sexual orientation.
Military Service: LGBTQ+ soldiers serve openly in the Israel Defense Forces in all capacities since 1993.

The saying Pride Goeth Before a Fall comes from the Book of Proverbs (16:18). The original states: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Reflect on the word Pride as wordplay, as a double entendre.

Would the Pride community reconsider their commitment to Queers for Palestine? Maybe it’s time for the Pride community to think about the harassment many, many Gay Jews have suffered directly by the hands of Queers for Palestine and other similar radical groups. Pride goeth before a fall. Pride goes before destruction. A “haughty spirit,” one that may not consider all the facts, one that may not critically think through the issues ̶ may fall.

All allies welcome! Am Yisrael Chai!