Parade to proceed in Jerusalem despite threats of violence from ultra-Orthodox Jews
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| Israeli settler groups and ultra-Orthodox religious Jews clash with Israeli police trying to protect participants in the annual Jerusalem Gay Pride parade in June 2005. One man stabbed and wounded two marchers in the most serious in a series of incidents involving opponents of the gay and lesbian gathering. |
JERUSALEM Israel’s attorney general refused to ban a gay pride parade in Jerusalem despite threats of violence from ultra-Orthodox Jews, instructing police and gay activists to try to work out a compromise, the police commander said Sunday.
Police had said earlier Sunday that the danger of violence was too great to allow the march to proceed, but left the final decision to Attorney General Meni Mazuz.
“We understand that the potential danger to life and bloodshed is greater than that to free speech,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
A Justice Ministry statement said the attorney general ordered police to meet with gay activists “to work out a reasonable alternative proposal” for the march, set for Friday on a route through the middle of the city. The meeting was to take place Monday.
Ella Canetti, one of the organizers of the gay Pride march, said they would meet police on Monday and were willing to be flexible.
“We are prepared to alter the route of our march to meet police concerns,” she told The Associated Press. “According to what we understand, a modest gay Pride march will take place in Jerusalem.”
After meeting with Mazuz, Jerusalem police commander Ilan Franco said, “It may be that there will be a march and a closing event at place which both sides decide is reasonable and minimizes potential damage and danger.”
But it was unclear whether such a compromise would satisfy the ultra-Orthodox Jewish opponents who have rioted in Jerusalem nearly every night over the past week, burning garbage cans, blocking roads and assaulting police officers in an attempt to get the authorities to call off the march, approved months ago by the Supreme Court. Many religious Jews, Muslims and Christians see homosexuality as a sin and the march as an affront to the sanctity of the holy city.
At last year’s march, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed and wounded three participants.
But the march’s organizers said they would not be deterred.
“We will march on Friday,” said Canetti of the Jerusalem Open House, the gay rights group behind the parade. “We hope it will be a happy event, but even if it’s not, it’s going to happen.”
With tensions peaking Sunday, some dissent was visible among gay activists.
Saar Nathaniel, a gay member of Jerusalem’s City Council and one of the march’s planners, suggested that gay activists cancel the march in return for ultra-Orthodox members of parliament supporting gay rights legislation, and a gay columnist in the liberal Haaretz daily called on organizers to show sensitivity for Jerusalem’s special status as a city holy to three faiths and move the march to the more permissive Tel Aviv.
According to Jerusalem police, six policemen have been hurt in the clashes over the past week and 60 rioters have been arrested. Over the weekend, the disturbances spread outside Jerusalem to the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, where rioters blocked one of Israel’s main highways with burning tires.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition, November 10, 2006.