Gays

In her book , The  Israelis, Donna Rosenthal gives us her perspective about the life of gays in Israel. According to her book, Israel has very progressive laws that protect the rights of gays, transsexuals and lesbians. For example, gay couples are eligible to spousal benefits, and gay officers serve in the Israeli Defense Force (Rosenthal, 371). The author contrasts this attitude to that of the Arab-Muslim culture where gays have no rights and they often have to face death threats from their surroundings (Rosenthal, 376) . Of course, Rosenthal reveals also the hostility of many Israelis towards the gay community. Orthodox Jews condemn homosexuality, and Russian Jews come from a communist regime that cultivated a culture of hostility towards homosexuals (Rosenthal, 377). Still, according to the author Israel is a far better place for an alternative lifestyle.

An internet research provides evidence that fit with Rosenthal’s vantage point. A Reuters article  mentions the case of a Palestinian gay from the West Bank who got a temporary permit to live with his lover in Israel. Usually, it takes years for a Palestinian to get this type of permit, but the death threats that the Palestinian gay faced in the West Bank were serious and his Israeli partner convinced the state to issue the permit fast. Of course, we have to be careful with these types of stories, because both lovers had an incentive to use whatever “evidence” they could find to facilitate the issuance of the permit.

Still, it is quite probable that a Palestinian gay actually faces a much more hostile environment in the Palestinian territories.  The BBC news  reports the escape of hundreds of Palestinian gays to Israel. It is even more interesting the fact that many of these Palestinian gays live in Israel illegally. According to the same article, many of those illegal Palestinian gays in Israel live practically under house arrest since the Israeli government treats them as suspects for suicide bombings. It is really difficult to imagine someone being willing to live under house arrest in Israel hoping to get a permit, unless there were really serious threats in the Palestinian territories . All these stories fit actually with different pieces of evidence we have about the Palestinian society. For example, traditional gender roles have not been challenged there to the degree they have been in western societies. Thus, it seems logical to expect that gays face harder challenges in the Palestinian territories.

More hard data come from two different sources. The first one comes from the Aswat group of Palestinian gay women living in Israel. The credibility of the site is enhanced by the fact that in one of their posts the group condemns the Israeli attacks on Gaza. So, it appears that the group is not controlled or influenced by the Israeli government. In addition, the Asia-Pacific Forum  (APF) seems to be a credible source of information and is cited in different academic papers (see for example page 175 of Professor Carole J. Petersen's paper.) According to page 107 of the APF's background paper, homosexual conduct is penalized in Gaza Strip. On the other hand, even though homosexuality is not a criminal offense in West Bank, there is no anti-discrimination law to protect the rights of gays and lesbians there. As a side note, we have to remember that even if anti-discrimination laws existed in theory, we could not assume that they were being enforced in practice.   

All the above do not mean that gays have an ideal life in Israel. For example, Haaretz reports the execution of two gays in a club in central Tel Aviv. The article does not clarify if the gunman was a Jew or a Palestinian, but in any case, the Israeli police announced that the murder was not linked to terrorism and was simply a hate crime. Again, this piece of information fits with Rosenthal’s book where she mentions the existence of many groups in Israel which hate the gay community. Still, it seems that these incidents are very rare. For example, the progressive (and presumably pro-gay) Haaretz mentioned in the same article that the shooting was the worst case of violence against the gay community in Israel up until then. So in conclusion, Israel seems to be a far better place for gays than the Palestinian territories and it seems Rosenthal gives a fair picture of the challenges the gay community faces in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

CHRISTIANS IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE

In her book The Israelis, Donna Rosenthal presents anecdotes, stories and interviews in an attempt to describe the everyday life of different demographic groups in Israel. In chapter fifteen, Rosenthal presents the Christians. The picture that emerges is that Christians often have to face the hostility and intolerance of the Muslim Arabs. We read for example that Muslims often threaten directly their Christian neighbors by saying that after Jews it is going to be the Christians’ turn and sometimes they even physically attack them or destroy their churches (Rosenthal, 320, 325). On the other hand, the author gives an idealistic view of the Jewish-Christian relationships. Wearing a big cross may be helpful for someone looking to rent an apartment from a Jewish landlord. Although Rosenthal concedes that innocent Palestinian Christians often face discrimination, she argues that this discrimination takes place because of their Palestinian identity and not the Christian one (Rosenthal, 321).

I believe that the reality is more complicated. One can easily find documentation and anecdotes that contradict Rosenthal’s view of the Christian-Jewish relationships. For example, an article in the  Jerusalem Post  reports the desecration of a Christian monastery by extremist right-wing Jews who reacted to the dismantlement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Jerusalem Post, of course, does not fail to add that other Jewish right-wing activists restored the damages and apologized to the monks. However, an article in the International Business Times reported that according to the Vatican senior official in Jerusalem, Friar Perbatistta  Pizzaballa, similar cases of desecrations of Christian churches with phrases in Hebrew like “Jesus was a monkey” are fairly common in Israel. In addition, Pizzaballa complained that the Israeli government is slow to prosecute the perpetrators. I think that Pizzaballa may actually have good reasons for his complaints considering the delicate political balance inside the Israeli coalition governments which often include parties from the extreme right. On the other hand, Pizzaballa's assertion about the Israeli government's  reaction to extremism is not a fact.

Other sources provide farther evidence of the tensions between Christians and extremist Jews. The Vatican Insider from the Italian mainstream newspaper La Stampa mentions an incident of a “violent attack” by young settlers against Christian apartments in Belfage. The article, however, does not clarify the nature of this attack and if it included physical violence. One may argue that the Vatican official and the newspaper act for the interests of the Pope and have a  heavily biased perspective. But still, it seems that both Jewish and Christian sources reveal a less idealistic picture of the Christian-Jewish relationships in Palestine. I believe that in the vast majority of cases, moderate believers respect the religion of their neighbors. Unfortunately, it is the few cases of extremists who with their actions dominate the news and sometimes even shape the general mode of behavior.

Rosenthal prefers to remain silent about the right-wing Jewish extremists. It seems that the presence of even more radical extremists in Arab countries somehow makes the Jewish extremists disappear. I believe she is wrong. Frankly, I am not even sure if Jewish right-wing extremists are really so different from the Palestinian ones. If the dismantlement of their settlements by their own government (who subsidized them to relocate) triggered these types of attacks, what would have been their reaction in a more adverse scenario?  What would have happened if their settlement had been dismantled by a Palestinian or Christian government forcing them to relocate without compensation and after losing all their wealth? How many then of those right-wing Jews would be tempted to copy the terrorist practices of the Palestinian extremists?

 If we really want to solve the problem of extremism, we must first have the intellectual courage to admit its existence in every place we find it. Today, religious minorities are not safe, even inside the most progressive societies in the world. This post was about the violence by Jewish extremists against the Christians in Israel because Rosenthal failed to mention it in her book. It goes without saying that even today Jews and their synagogues and cemeteries in Europe often become targets of extremists there. And as long as we continue to ignore “our extremists,” the situation will not change much.