The soldier and the terrorist: Sexy nationalism, queer violence

An Israeli soldier, praised for killing terrorists in their homes, and adored as a gay prince charming; a Palestinian gay man called either a lying terrorist or a cute Arab boy with an almond ass; an Abu-Ghraib prisoner, whose naked body, pornographically mediated and distributed by the media generates a homosexual rape fantasy of all Arabs in-the-name-of-Israeli-security. These images were collected during my ethnography of a Russian-Israeli GLBT community, in the community's website. My analysis of the website's publications and discussions focuses on the ways violence, sexuality and nationhood intertwine in immigrants' sense of belonging to the country that is officially defined by the state policy - and indeed perceived by many immigrants themselves - as their home. I examine how masculinities become synecdoches of nation, and how homosexual fantasies work to create attachment to one's national home and hatred towards those defined as its enemies. © 2008 Sage Publications.