The slaughter at the gay and lesbian club

The demonstration at Rabin Square in solidarity the with the gay and lesbian community one week after the massacre at that community's youth centre in Tel Aviv, left me both proud and enraged.

Proud, because tens of thousands had come to protest against homophobia, an ugly manifestation of racism.  Enraged, because the demonstration organizers huddled under the umbrella of the right-wing Israeli government and pushed aside people of the Left who are struggling against racism in all its forms.  Former Knesset Member Issam Makhoul, who had requested to be one of the speakers, was rejected.

Adir Steiner, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai's liaison to the gay and lesbian community, wanted to know what Issam would say. When Steiner learned that Issam would speak out against racism in all its forms, he was disqualified.  Steiner as Selektor.  For what did they need a prominent leader of the Arab community, who would spoil the beautiful show at which Likud ministers and the President of the State would appear?  Among the speakers were Education Minister Gideon Saar and Culture Minister Limor Livnat, both from the right-wing faction of the Likud and supporters of the settlements and the apartheid regime in the Occupied territories.  Issam would surely have exposed them both in all their nakedness.  Hence the absurd spectacle of organizers of a demonstration against homophobia that endorsed the call to come out of the closet, calling for the Arab leader to be put into the closet.

When I heard the President Shimon Peres say "we are the people that received the commandment 'Thou shalt not commit murder'" [it] made my flesh crawl.  That man, whose hands are drenched in blood, who during the decades of his participation in government had transgressed innumerable times the commandment not to commit murder, presents himself as an innocent lamb to whom the sanctity of human life is a guiding light.  Issam would certainly have reminded him of a few relevant things.  For example, the Kfar Kana massacre in Lebanon during "Operation Grapes of Wrath" in 1996, in which over a hundred Lebanese civilians were killed, including women and children, who had sought shelter in a UN zone.  Peres was the prime minister then.  Who needs the Arab who will spoil the fun?

Many victims of racism are partners in racism when their communities are not affected.  Gay and lesbian settlers are partners in racism against Arabs.  Some of the Arab, Haredi [1], religious and Russian communities share homophobia.  Haredis and Russians share hatred of Arabs, and so on. Only those on the Left present a coherent outlook against racism as such: whether it is against Haredis, the gay and lesbian community, Arabs, Mizrahim,[2] Ethiopians, refugees from Africa or migrant workers.  To a person of the Left they are all members of the human community and deserving of equal rights.

We do not yet know the identity of the murderer who carried out the slaughter of the young people at the gay and lesbian youth club.  But even without such detailed information, it is obvious to me that the Occupation was a significant factor behind the crime, which cut short the lives of Liz Trubishi, age 17, and Nir Katz, age 26, and wounded 11.

The Occupation has strengthened religious and national zealotry, converted all of Israel into a violent and intolerant society in which racism flourishes.  Firearms are available to every schoolboy.  Under such environmental conditions, inhibitions against the impulse to carry out a massacre become very frayed.

These things are true whether the murderer came from within the gay and lesbian community or whether the murderer was a religious nationalist.

Homophobia will not disappear because of one demonstration.  Already the next day the talkbacks were full of threats and burning hate against the gay and lesbian community.  One of those who sent threats on the Internet was identified as a Haredi Nahal [3] soldier.  The chief military rabbi rebuked the army magazine "Bamahane" for covering the gay and lesbian issue.  And the Haredis will continue to see homosexuality and lesbianism as an illness that should be treated as if it were avian flu (the brilliant idea of the ignorant racist Knesset Member Nissim Ze'ev of the Shas party).

Homophobia and religion are virtually Siamese twins.  The holy scriptures of the three religions see homosexuality and lesbianism as a religious transgression to be punished by flogging and death.  As long [as] no religious authority arises who will modify what is written in the Bible and remove from it the prohibition on homosexuality and lesbianism, that violent microbe will continue to embitter our lives and claim victims.  In order for that to happen, there must be a brilliant rabbi who will say that not everything God said, or what we attribute to Him, is holy.  As long as the rabbis, imams and priests believe that the holy scriptures are the word of God, the likelihood such a revolutionary change is about as much as that of squaring a circle.

In the meantime, therefore, we have to continue with the sisyphean struggle against prejudice and ignorance.  In the remote past I was of the view that there was no reason for a community to take pride in its sexual inclinations; but I was very quickly convinced that the expression of special pride is a legitimate means in the struggle of a discriminated-against and oppressed minority.  The Blacks in the USA coined the slogan "Black is Beautiful" and the gay and lesbian community justly manifests pride in the features for which others seek to oppress or humiliate them.

Notes

[1] Haredi Jews (or Haredim or Haredis) are extremely observant religious Jews, the men among whom typically wear black pants and suit-jackets or caftans, wide-brimmed hats and beards. They are sometimes called Hasidim, though in fact not all Haredis are Hasidic – trans.

[2] Mizrahim literally means “Easterners”, but in Israel the term is routinely applied to Jews from Islamic countries in general, including those from Morocco, which is well to the west of Israel and the lands of origin of most Jewish communities, and the very name of which – “al-Maghrib” – is literally “the west” in Arabic – trans.

[3] An infantry brigade in the Israeli army – trans.