Homosexuality is illegal in some provinces in Indonesia, including Aceh where such 'offense' warrants you 100 lashes. This applies only to Muslims, so I find it hard to believe that religion or Islam has got nothing to do with it.It's the only country, along with Malaysia and Brunei, with such legislation. They're also the only countries in the region with Muslim majorities. Most countries in the ME operate on the same basis, which is one law for Muslims and another for non-believers. Again, religion is undoubtedly the deciding factor for what punition you're going to get if you're gay.

It's also completely inaccurate to classify the issue about gay rights in the ME, Africa or countries with sizable Muslim population as a misunderstanding of their roots. Frankly, that kind of statement is colonial as fuck. Just for starter, labeling Israel as a new country is laughable at best considering the extensive documented history of the Jewish faith. Not to get into a lot of detail here, but suffice to say that if its most religious elements were completely in control it wouldn't be the LGBT haven it is now. In addition to that, the contemporary countries have little to nothing to do with the civilizations of old. As recently as 50 years ago, most of these countries enjoyed liberties far higher than they are today, so the idea that they somehow never evolved on social issues since then is ridiculous. The problem isn't that they're not understood well enough by the Western world; the problem is that their social core is being corrupted by religious bigots who are exploiting the in-fighting that ravaged their lands to shore up support for their imaginary friend and the values he supposedly promotes. You have a country like Saudi Arabia, which is really nothing more than a successful ISIS-type of government, that uses its vast wealth to fund islamists establishments in foreign countries. In Malaysia, for example, they've successfully helped over the last 30 years converting most of the indigenous locals in Borneo to their religion by funnelling money their way, with stiff competition from Christian missionnaries. It's done in other vulnerable countries, in a push for power that only serves to install religious people at the top. Conveniently, the US also often aims to displace dictatorial regimes, so they don't even have to try too hard most of the time. This is all relatively new (within the last century) development, so again, to say that we just don't understand their roots is naive. You have countries in the Maghreb that are trying to fight these kind of insurgencies, with limited success; in fact, Tunisia and Morocco are probably the most successful at it, and that's only because they strong secular influences running through their institutions.

You mentioned the danger LGBT people face in Jamaica, or other places in the Caribbean with a Christian majority. Punishment against LGBT is not codified into law in these countries; the danger 'on the street', to me, is very different from the danger one can face as a victim of a system.