Well, I just returned home from the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, and it was quite large, considering that it was less than a week ago that the Israeli Courts gave the go ahead to hold the parade at all.
I am bad with these things, but I would say anywhere from 3-4,000 demonstrators and several hundred religious counter-demonstrators (plus a couple hundred soldiers and police).
And while I am happy that the Jerusalem Open House won the Court Case against Lupolianski, the mayor of Jerusalem, who tried to disallow the parade (even forcing him to personally pay the court costs)....yet, God, what a scary, fucked up parade it was!!
The parade started in the center of Jerusalem on Ben Yehuda St. which is a pedestrian mall.
My office is a block away from the bottom of the street (literally bottom, as it is on a hill), and when a couple of coworkers and I entered Ben Yehuda St., there were hundreds of ultra-orthodox praying, chanting, at first I thought that there must have been an anti-disengagment(from Gaza) protest, but then I saw they were holding signs such as (in Hebrew): "This is not the land of the gays, it is the land of the rightious", "Homos are an shame to humanity", "Leviticus 18:22-23 ";You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination", etc.
Plus everyone in this group had orange tags on (signifying that they are against the disengagement from Gaza).
Then we had to wade through a line of police and soldiers that were attempting to keep the Orthodox from the Gay Pride paraders.
Definitely not a festive atmosphere. There was really an unusally ominous feeling in the air, and you know that must be bad because Jerusalem ALWAYS feels somewhat ominous. And the police were NOT doing a good job of keeping the groups separated, and religious men were getting up real close to the crowd, some of them getting among us, and screaming
threats.
Then it just got worse...around 19:00, as soon as the parade started moving, bags were thrown into the parade crowd, of what I can only guess from the smell were human feces, and others filled with a sickly white liquid that was even worse, smelling like the juice of rotting meat or something of that sort....and they exploded all over people. I saw several people covered in the noxious smelling liquid. It was really unbearable for a while.
But then finally we reached the top of Ben Yehuda and started walking on the larger roads that were blocked off to traffic by the police, making our way towards the Rehavia neighborhood, where among other landmarks are the Great Jerusalem Synagogue and the house of the Prime Minister.
While it was really great to see the thousands of paraders with rainbow flags and balloons, the sides of the street were lined with religious men screaming hatred, and again, the police were doing halfwork keeping them away from the parade.
Then just before the Great Jerusalem Synagogue I noticed man lying on the ground with blood all over the ground and on his chest (it isn't the man in the pictures below). From what I can guess it occured about a minute before we arrived there and there were several people helping him already. I had never seen anyone stabbed before, and I must say it was pretty horrifying. But apparently it was not life threatening and he is only in stable condition.
After that point we were more and more in a part of West Jerusalem that tends to be more liberal and there were more people standing on the sides cheering than jeering.
Then, when it was dark out, the parade finally reached a big open park where there was a stage and smoke and really really typical and bad dance music...but this was much more festive and the threatening atmosphere outside the park seemed to recede a little...
One can only guess that the especially large surge of anger coming from the religious demonstrators has something to do with their conscious or subconscious recognition that the great majority of Israelis are sick to death of their demonstrations against the disengagement, their blocking of roads (with metal spikes and oil slicks even), and their whining while they suck all the tax money from the rest of us with their settlements, their military escorts, their yeshivas, and their million shekel stipends for leaving the settlements they should never have been in.
They want to thrash out their aggressions at any token target they see as modern, secular or liberal.
And it is just going to get worse as we move towards August.
Bryan -----------------------------------------
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Violence erupts at Gay Pride Parade
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3106491,00.html
Religious youngster stabs three J’lem parade participants; Magen David Adom says marchers sustained light, medium injuries By Doron Sheffer and Efrat Weiss
JERUSALEM - A religious Jew stabbed three people during clashes between dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews and thousands of Gay Pride Parade marchers in central Jerusalem Thursday.
The Magen David Adom emergency services reported the two are listed in light and medium condition.
Thirteen religious Jews were arrested for attempting to block the parade's path.
Some one hundred ultra-Orthodox arrived at the corner of Hahistadrut and Ben-Yehuda streets and attempted to attack the marchers as the parade made its way to the area, and police forces tried to disperse them forcefully.
The ultra-Orthodox waved banners reading, “Homosexuality is abnormal” and “Homosexuality is not an incurable disease and may be treated with psychiatric care.”
The marchers, in turn, waved signs reading, “100 percent bisexual” and “Don’t worry, be gay.”
The marchers, numbering several thousands, adorned rainbow-colored outfits, and some came I drag.
The parade was allowed to go ahead after the District Court ordered Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lopoliansky to reverse his decision on the matter.
Equality in Jerusalem
“We came to show our support for Jerusalem,” Tel Aviv resident Yaniv Weitzman of the “Proud Youth” organization said. “The mayor’s reaction only increases the parade’s importance.”
Hagay Elad, the director of the Gay grassroots organization “Jerusalem Open House,” said the violence is “a direct result of the incitement that took place during the past few weeks against the homo-lesbian community.”
“This is not the first time we see how incitement in Israel leads to physical violence, which begins with (Jerusalem) Mayor Uri Lopoliansky and his associates,” he said.
Elad said the parade organizers took the pullout-related violence into account when they had decided to go ahead with the march.
“We have decided to cancel the international parade that was scheduled for August due to the disengagement plan and postpone it until next year, so it cannot be said that we are not being considerate,” he said.
Parade participant Maayan Amiazar said that for her the parade is a celebration of democracy.
“I invited (to the parade) more straight friends than members of the community,” she said. “It is very important that the judicial system proved there is equality in Jerusalem as well."
