Under Heavy Police
Guard,
Gay Rights Advocates
Rally in Jerusalem
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Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press
Despite
opposition from Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders, gay rights
supporters gathered at Hebrew University’s sports stadium Friday |
By GREG MYRE, NYTimes
on the Web, November 11, 2006
JERUSALEM, Nov. 10 — After Supreme
Court rulings, criticism from the Vatican and several nights of rioting by angry
opponents, Jerusalem’s gay community held a small, orderly rally Friday under a
heavy police guard.
The police contingent of 3,000 was nearly as large as the crowd, which cheered
speeches and danced to music from a stage draped in rainbow banners at Hebrew
University’s sports stadium.
The venue was changed twice as the police sought a secure area, well away from
an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood where youths have rioted in opposition to the
event. Friday’s rally was much more modest than the original plan, which
had called for a large march through the city center, and organizers and
participants were divided on whether to declare it a full success.
“I’m disappointed because I believe the religious people won this battle, and
the people who believe in democracy and human rights lost,” Jonathan Oron, 29, a
graduate student at Tel Aviv University, said at the rally.
But Avshalom Vilan, a member of Parliament from the left-wing Meretz Party,
said, “This is a success, because we stood up for the basic principle of our
right to demonstrate.”
Many in the crowd said they were not gay, and had come to show support for civil
rights in what has become a contentious annual affair in this religious,
conservative city.
Jerusalem Open House, a gay and lesbian group, has held a similar event for the
past five years, and the buildup this year was again marked by staunch
opposition from Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders, who rarely find points of
agreement.
“If it was up to me, I would send the gay community, who insisted on celebrating
in Jerusalem, to Sodom and Gomorrah,” said Eli Yishai, one of Israel’s deputy
prime ministers and the leader of Shas, an Orthodox party that belongs to Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert’s governing coalition.
Noting that Christian and Muslim clerics also opposed the event, Mr. Yishai told
Israel Radio, “If we cannot be sensitive to Jewish feelings, perhaps we can
listen to those of other religions.”
In liberal, secular Tel Aviv, gay-themed events take place without a ripple.
But in Jerusalem, there is always friction.
Last year, a 10-day international gay festival was planned for Jerusalem in
August, and faced strong opposition from religious groups. The event was
canceled when the Israeli government scheduled the planned withdrawal of Jewish
settlers from the Gaza Strip at the same time, and Israeli security officials
expressed concern that they would be stretched too thin.
Instead, a local march was held last year, when an Orthodox man stabbed and
wounded three participants.
This year, some Orthodox leaders again expressed strong opposition in advance of
the march. On several nights during the past week, young men in the
Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim rioted, throwing stones at police officers
and burning garbage in the streets.
“I think there has been a general weakening of the rule of law in Israel, and
some people feel they can trample on the rights of others,” said Noa Sattath, a
leader of Jerusalem Open House.
In recent months, members of a parliamentary committee held two lengthy debates
on the event. Israel’s Supreme Court rejected several petitions seeking to
bar it.
The Vatican on Wednesday urged the Israeli government to cancel the rally,
saying it would “prove offensive to the great majority of Jews, Muslims and
Christians, given the sacred character of the city of Jerusalem.”
With the police serving as mediators, the march was first postponed and moved to
a part of the city dominated by government buildings, regarded as a secure area.
But after the Israeli military killed 18 Palestinian civilians in a shelling
attack in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, the Israeli security forces went on a
heightened state of alert to guard against a Palestinian attack. The
police sought an even more secure location for Friday’s rally, and moved it to
the Hebrew University stadium. They blocked off streets for a half-mile in
all directions.
Orthodox leaders agreed not to stage protests on Friday. However, in a
one-man demonstration, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who flew in from Brooklyn, denounced
the rally from the front gate of the stadium.
“They are making a statement against God himself,” said Rabbi Levin, of the
Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. “They are
creating bad feelings. They are not being tolerant of our feelings.”
Also, the police said they had detained about 30 gay activists who sought to
march from a park in Jerusalem, and held five Orthodox men in the same area who
were found with knives.
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