After being delayed twice already, now the Jerusalem police are considering withdrawing a permit to hold a gay pride parade in Jerusalem:
Jerusalem's police department said Monday it is reconsidering its approval of a parade permit for next month's gay pride celebration.
The parade has been under increasing condemnation by religious extremists and conservative members of Israel's Parliament. Orthodox rabbis, Muslims and conservative Christians have reignited the firestorm of criticism they mounted over World Pride events held over the summer in Jerusalem. Their opposition resulted in the refusal to grant a parade permit.
The city's gay pride parade also was met with a parade permit refusal when Jerusalem Open House sought to hold it on September 21, the day before Jews around the world begin celebrating the High Holidays.
Open House, the LGBT community center that is organizing the parade, went to the Supreme Court and a deal was worked out with police to hold the march on November 11.
And why is this being considered? Because a bunch of anti-gay nutballs from all three major religions are threatening to disrupt the event:
Nearly 70 members of Parliament from a wide number of parties have signed a petition against holding the parade. Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, Yaacov Edri, has called for the parade to be cancelled.
On the weekend an extreme religious sect said it would disrupt the march, vowing to have 1,000 people in place to prevent it from taking place.
Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco met with leaders of the sect but was unable to get them to rescind their call to disrupt the parade.
Then do your job - protect those exercising their right to march and arrest anyone who attempts to disrupt their exercise of those rights. That is the reason the police exist, for crying out loud.
Open House has met with obstruction each year it has marked pride.
Last year when the city refused to issue a pride parade permit the center went to court and won an injunction forcing the city to allow the march.
The parade was marred by a series of violent attacks in which more than a than a dozen protestors were arrested and three people were stabbed.
Almost 1,000 protestors lined the parade route. Bottles of urine and bags containing feces were hurled at marchers.
Shortly after the parade began Shai Schlissel, a member of a militant Orthodox sect, rushed into the marchers on Ben Yehuda Street stabbing a man and a woman.
Others in the parade attempted to subdue him. The third victim was a marcher who went to the aid of the other two victims.
If the police rescind the permit, the Israeli Supreme Court will almost certainly order them to reinstate it. But the whole situation is absurd. You cannot allow violent thugs to destroy the rights of others. That is the whole reason why we have police in the first place. Their job is to protect our rights against those who would use violence to destroy them. Anything less than that is only an encouragement to more violence.
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I wonder what the reaction would be in the Moslem world if such a march was proposed for any city therein. I suspect that anybody proposing such a thing would be immediately arrested, if not shot on the spot. This should be acknowledged before bashing the State of Israel for showing reluctance to sanction such a march.
Yes. The antisemitism in the post is so transparent that we may as well be calling them dentites or teh H3br00s.
SLC-
I put very little stock in the argument that someone else is even worse. That does not excuse what has gone on here. And there appear to be more than enough Jewish nutballs who agree with the Muslim nutballs in this regard, enough for several hundred of them to storm the streets, set fire to garbage cans, block traffic and injure several policemen by throwing rocks at them.
Re double-soup
I hardly think that my response in any way, shape, form or regard accused Mr. Brayton of being anti-semitic.
Re Ed Brayton
I should point out that the "Jewish nutballs" are being amply reinforced by Christian and Moslem nutballs who are quite ready to accuse the Jerusalem Government of blaspheming the Holy City by even contemplating allowing such a march.
SLC-
Absolutely. But so far, only the Jewish nutballs have committed actual violence. I just posted something new about a major riot in Jerusalem last night over the issue by ultra-orthodox Jews. I see no point in excusing or minimizing their actions just because there's someone else out there who might be worse. A nut is a nut, regardless of which particular religion fuels their nuttiness.