Re: Jewish supporters of Rabbi Meir Kahane praise Gaza killings as ‘holy’
On Nov 10, 2006, at 9:05 AM, Bryan Atinsky wrote:
“Thanks to him today large protests exist today and we saw how they
(gay groups) are retreating more and more. That’s what rabbi Kahane
taught us – self-sacrifice,” right-wing activist Noam Fderman said.
That’s one way to put it, though it seems they’re more interested in
sacrificing others.
This business about a “death curse” is something else.
Doug
Financial Times - November 7, 2006
Gay Pride protests highlight Israel’s divisions By Harvey Morris in Jerusalem
Thousands of police are due to deploy in Jerusalem on Friday to
protect a Gay Pride parade after a week of riots and protests by the
city’s ultra-Orthodox community failed to persuade the authorities to
cancel the annual event.
Organisers have agreed to change the route of the parade to avoid the
centre of the city. However, the concession did not sway opponents of
the march who, for a sixth night running, blocked streets in
religious neighbourhoods, stoned police and planted a fake bomb.
A number of people, including police, have been injured and dozens of
protesters arrested.
The annual parade has always been controversial among an ultra-
Orthodox community that regards homosexuality as an abomination and
sees the event as a desecration of the holy city. An ultra-Orthodox
man stabbed three participants at last year’s march.
This year’s unprecedented protests, however, have highlighted wider
divisions in Israeli society stirred up by last year’s evacuation of
settlers from Gaza and this year’s Lebanon war.
The protesters have been doubly offended by the timing of this year’s
event. Postponed because of the Lebanon conflict, its rescheduling
coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht in which Jews were
systematically attacked by Nazi gangs in 1938 Germany.
While secular leaders support the gay community’s democratic right to
hold the march, nationalist settler groups who failed to prevent the
Gaza withdrawal have backed ultra-Orthodox demands for the event to
be banned.
Menachem Mazuz, attorney-general, ruled this week that the re-routed
parade should go ahead despite fears among police that it could lead
to violence.
In a dispute that appears to have engaged every sector of Israeli
society, he was denounced by, among others, Arcadi Gaydamak, the
billionaire businessman. However, left-wing politicians defended his
decision, while Yael Gelman, mayor of the coastal town of Herzliya,
called on her fellow mayors from around the country to show
solidarity by attending Friday’s march.
A rabbinical court was on Tuesday considering placing a pulsa denura
– popularly regarded as a death curse – on parade participants, the
police and Mr Mazuz. Similar curses were in the past placed on
Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated by a Jewish extremist
in 1994, and Ariel Sharon, the prime minister who ordered the Gaza
withdrawal.
Less demonstrative opposition to the parade has also been expressed
by Muslim leaders and some Christian groups.
The claim of one leading rabbi that “obscenity and promiscuity in the
Holy Land” was to blame for Israel’s failings in the war against
Hizbollah echoed claims by right-wing commentators at the height of
the Lebanon conflict that the moral fibre of Zionism had been
undermined by a culture of hedonism.
Israel’s growing ultra-Orthodox community is historically non-Zionist
or even anti-Zionist. More recently, however, some sectors have
aligned themselves with religious nationalists, particularly in
opposition to the Gaza withdrawal.
A recent opinion poll indicated the ultra-Orthodox were the most
unpopular minority in Israeli society. Many Israelis resent the
refusal of many of the community to serve in the armed forces as well
as the payment of welfare to ultra-Orthodox men who opt for religious
study over work.
The divisions are particularly apparent in Jerusalem, with an ultra-
Orthodox mayor and an Orthodox population estimated at above 40 per
cent.
Some Jerusalem residents lament the spread of the ultra-Orthodox into
previously secular neighbourhoods, where they impose strict
observance of the Sabbath. Yisrael Gliss, an ultra-Orthodox
journalist, recently told the daily Yedioth Ahronoth: “The haredim
[ultra-Orthodox] will take control of Jerusalem and those who don’t
like it can leave.”