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Israeli police plan "unprecedented" operation to safeguard Jerusalem gay pride march

JERUSALEM: About 9,000 police will protect gay marchers in Jerusalem, the biggest internal civilian security operation in Israel's history, the police commander said Wednesday, after a week of riots by ultra-Orthodox Jews who threaten to attack the parade.

Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco said permission was granted for 5,000 gay activists to march Friday through a nonresidential area away from the city center and to hold a closing rally in a university stadium there, while 20,000 religious protesters demonstrate about two kilometers (a mile) away, near the Jerusalem central bus station.

Other anti-gay demonstrations are expected at main road junctions in Jerusalem and around the country, he said. The police deployment is codenamed "Operation Colors of the Rainbow," reflecting the gay movement's rainbow flag.

"There will be 8,500 to 9,000 police physically present in Jerusalem," Franco said. "That number is unprecedented in its size in any district of the Israeli police to this day." A year ago, 9,000 police took part in the evacuation of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Franco said that should serious public disorder erupt in Jerusalem, as many as 12,000 police and paramilitary border police could be deployed in the city of 700,000, which is considered holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Leaders of all the faiths have called for the gay pride event to be banned.

Israeli police are already on high alert in light of threats by Palestinian militants to carry out suicide bombing attacks in revenge for Israel's shelling of a residential neighborhood in Gaza Wednesday in which 18 people, most of them women and children, were killed.

From Thursday night, preparedness will ratchet up one more notch to its highest level, generally used only during major Jewish festivals, when there are fears of major terrorist incidents such as a bombing during Passover 2002 when 29 Israelis were killed.

Police will be faced Friday with possibly violent attempts to stop the parade, the potential of anti-march protests at other sites getting out of hand and the real danger that crowds of Israelis on the streets could be a tempting target for Palestinian militants.

"The whole police force will be on the highest level, a precaution which is only taken a few times a year," police spokesman Micky Rosenberg said. "We're ready to deal with the possibility of terrorist attacks."

Ultra-Orthodox Jews who say the gay event in the holy city is "an abomination" have rioted on Jerusalem streets for the past week, stoning police and civilian traffic, blocking streets and setting tires and garbage bins on fire.

A total of 88 people were arrested and brought before judges, and 29 were remanded in custody, Franco said.

On Thursday, in the deeply religious Mea Shearim neighborhood, the burned-out shell of a pickup truck still lay on its roof in the road, and scorchmarks showed where burning tires blocked main roads the night before. Glass panes of bus shelters were shattered, and the stench of burning garbage still hung in the air.

During a gay march last year in Jerusalem, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed and wounded three participants.

Police had warned that Friday's march posed a danger to public safety that outweighs the damage to free speech that would be caused by its cancellation, but Israel's attorney-general ruled that it must be allowed.

Organizers agreed to reroute the march away from its originally planned path through downtown districts. and it will now be held in an area of government offices, away from main roads and more easily secured, the police said. The offices are closed on Fridays.

This was going to be about tolerance.
It could turn out to be about murder.

This was going to be about courageous steps taken by police officials and leaders of both the ultra-Orthodox and gay communities, to reduce the friction, the fury, the hurt feelings, and the possibility of violence in the dispute over the planned Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem.

This was going to be about the many gay activists who were concerned about the sensitivities of Orthodox residents of Jerusalem and worked to see that the parade would not be held in their neighborhoods.

This was going to be about a well-intentioned if ultimately futile attempt late Monday by members of the ultra-Orthodox Eida Haredit organization to calm tensions and curb rioting.

Members of the group used megaphones to try to stop Haredi youths who were pelting police officers with large stones, blocks, bottles, angle irons, and wood planks, telling them that the Torah forbade taking actions that endangered lives and declaring a curfew.

Then this.

"The Rabbinical Court has held a special session and discussed placing a pulsa danura on those who have a hand in organizing the march," Rabbi Shmuel Papenheim, editor of the Eida Haredit's weekly magazine "Ha'eidah" told Army Radio on Tuesday.

The curse could also be cast "against the policemen who beat ultra-Orthodox Jews," Papenheim added.

If words can kill, 'pulsa danura' is a weapon of mass destruction.

It may be said with certainty that Badatz, the Eida Haredit's rabbinical High Court, intends no physical harm to those connected with the parade or those charged with guarding them.

But there is an entirely inexcusable element of irresponsibility in citing the pulsa danura in connection with a powderkeg issue that mines and exacerbates political, religious and cultural tensions all at once.

The mere mention of the concept bears explosive force in the supercharged climate of woe and worry and fear of the Other - fear of the Other even if the other is, in fact, one of yours.

It's the hallmark of the tribalism of a Holy Land in which we're all related, though history, through blood, through Genesis, through the hourly news.

There is another point that we all know but take pains never to discuss, all of us who live in the Holy land and its holiest city: the high incidence of mental illness among our political fanatics.

Although frequently over-simplified and misunderstood as a Talmudically rooted kabbalistic curse of death, the contemporary meaning of pulsa danura - as a voodoo tool of the psychotic right - has taken on a deadly power of its own.

As a fringe group with worldwide adherents, Voodoo Jewry happens to hold many views that align with the far-right and very religious. But Voodoo Jewry, whether Kahanist or quasi-kabbalist or revisionist Hasidic in nature, goes well beyond.

Consider Avigdor Eskin, who told reporters that on the night of October 6, 1995, he pronounced the following curse on "Yitzhak, the son of Rosa Rabin," for signing the Oslo peace agreements and speaking ill of the settlers:

"Put to death the cursed Yitzhak. May he be damned, damned, damned!"

"Angels of destruction will hit him. He is damned wherever he goes. His soul will instantly leave his body," Eskin intoned, "and he will not survive a month."

Eskin's publicity-grabbing curses accompanied more descreet rulings by extremist rabbis, who cited the concepts of "din rodef" in implying that Rabin deserved to be put to death.

On November 4, 1995, Rabin was gunned down by law student Yigal Amir, who has since become perhaps the central role model, idol, and, for many, sex symbol, of Voodoo Jewry.

The lunatic fringe of Voodoo Jewry received further reinforcement when Ariel Sharon was stricken with a massive cerebral hemorrhage in January, six months after radical opponents of the then-prime minister's disengagement from Gaza gathered in a graveyard in Rosh Pina to ask the Angel of Death to kill him.

None of this deterred the Badatz from placing the pulsa danura on the docket.

Rabbi Papenheim was similarly unfazed. He told Army Radio on Tuesday that the ultra-Orthodox rioting in the streets of Jerusalem was not the exercise of violence but "conducting a campaign."

As for the parade and the pulsa danura, "We've done what we could to uproot this evil from Jerusalem. The moment we see that we've done all that we could from here, we will engage higher forces, with their Torah powers, so that they will take care of this matter, which we see as the most grave."

Moving the parade to another area of the city would make no difference, he continued. "First of all, we would not allow such a thing in Jerusalem, nor anywhere else in the world. This is against the halakha, against the Torah, and against all morality.

"In this case, when we're speaking of a public obscenity, and greatly harms our children and their upbringing, we've taken it upon ourselves to fight this with all our power."

According to the rabbi, the Badatz of the Eidah Haredit had not instituted the pulsa danura for 50 years, since Jerusalem opened its first pool for mixed swimming of men and women.

"We know that all those who had a hand in the Pool of Abomination did not end up well," Rabbi Papenheim said, noting that then-Jerusalem mayor Gershon Agron's life "did not last out the year."

2) Should there be a point where public safety takes precedence over free speach and the right to demonstrate? In this case, there is a fairly obvious danger to other human beings and I'm wondering if it's a good enough reason to shut down the parade.

Faqa wrote:Depends. In this case, the threat is caused by a certain ELEMENT of the public. Which means giving in is tantamount to giving in to blackmail. I'm in favor of guarding that parade with an ARMED force, authorized to do as it feels neccesary to safeguard participants. The Haredim CANNOT be allowed to believe they can command anyone to hide with these antics.

Vatican urges Israel to ban Jerusalem gay parade

By Robin PomeroyWed Nov 8, 2:36 PM ET

The Vatican has condemned a gay pride parade due to be held in Jerusalem on Friday as offensive to religious believers and urged Israeli authorities to stop it taking place.

"It is with bitterness that we have learned that the day after tomorrow, November 10, 2006, there is scheduled in Jerusalem a so-called 'gay pride parade'," the Vatican said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

In a letter to Israel's Foreign Ministry, the Vatican urged authorities to withdraw permission for the parade which is expected to attract up to 8,000 people.

"The Holy See has reiterated on many occasions that the right to freedom of expression, sanctioned by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is subject to just limits, in particular when the exercise of this right would offend the religious sentiments of believers," the letter said.

"It is clear that the gay parade scheduled to take place in Jerusalem will prove offensive to the great majority of Jews, Muslims and Christians, given the sacred character of the City of Jerusalem."

Gay pride festivals have been held each year in Jerusalem since 2001, but this year's, bigger and with international participation, has caused greater outrage than before.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, dressed in black suits and hats, have protested in the city, burning tires and pelting the police with stones. Organizers say the parade will promote understanding, tolerance and open-mindedness.

The Vatican has often criticized the rise of gay rights as a potential threat to the traditional model of the family.

In June, it said gay marriage, abortion, lesbians wanting to bear children and a host of other practices it saw as threats to the traditional family, were signs of "the eclipse of God.

1) Is doing a gay pride parade in Jerusalem of all places stretching it abit far in offending people? In a city where the vast majority of the population is religious to a strong degree, this seems like asking for trouble.
I'm thinking it's abit overboard, esspecially after the organiser of the parade has been on the record saying they are doing the parade in Jerusalem 'just because'.

Comrade Tortoise wrote:Unfortunately by giving in to the blackmail, you only let the ultra-orthodox assholes win.

That is like saying "Oh, well we shouldnt do out lunch-counter sit in in Birmingham Alabama. Afterall, they are racists there and we wouldnt want to be intolerant of their beliefs"

That is a bullshit argument. The fact that it will piss off the fundie bastards is all the more reason to have it there, because they are the ones who need to see it.