10/08/2015 | Writer: Hakan Özkan
After the knife attack in Gay Pride of Jerusalem, we had an interview with Yossef Mekyton from Israeli Queers for Palestine Organization: "Homophobia, for example, is projected and externalized upon Palestinians, ultra orthodox Jews and non-white Jews’
After the knife attack in Gay Pride of Jerusalem, we had an interview with Yossef Mekyton from Israeli Queers for Palestine Organization: "Homophobia, for example, is projected and externalized upon Palestinians, ultra orthodox Jews and non-white Jews”
An Orthodox Jewish called Yishai Shlissel carried out the attack which happened in Keren Heyesod Street, who had attacked 3 people with knife in Gay Pride ten years before this time.
We asked Yossef Mekyton about the political background for these attacks. Yossef attended the Jerusalem Pride and is a member of the Regional Network and carried out some secretariat tasks for Kaos GL Association.
"On our way to the Jerusalem Pride we were speaking in the car about the stabbing that took place on 2005, ten years ago. We remembered that the attacker, Shlissel, was released from prison just a few weeks before, after having his sentence shortened. We did not think he poses any threat this time, since the authorities probably know him and would not let him near. But also, we thought the security around Pride is tight and we had a reason to think that.
"A few years ago, someone I knew, let's call him Dan, had trouble getting through security and join pride. Dan is a transgendered man and an ultra orthodox. The guards around Pride stopped him, and had trouble figuring out where he belongs. He told them he was going to march on Pride, but what they saw was an ultra orthodox Jew which to them meant a potential threat.
"This false sense of safety is not only a problem of stigma"
"In 'Israel' these two identities - LGBTI and religious - are imagined to be separate and conflicting, and surely one person cannot be both. But things are changing rapidly. The last 10 years saw the founding of many organizations and groups of religious LGBTI Jews in 'Israel'. They change the discourse within religious society and they change the perceptions of the LGBTI secular community as well.
"Knowing the guards around pride are prejudice in that way and suspicious of ultra orthodox people was insulting to some of us, but we also felt safer at the same time because of it - at least those of us who are not ultra orthodox.
"This false sense of safety is not only a problem of stigma and perception. It is the entire 'Israeli' paradigm of security in a nutshell: profiling. A quick and dirty way to decide if someone is "with us" or "against us" with no space for complexity in between. And if you are "with us" then you cannot be racist or homophobic because these traits belong to "them", not to "us". Homophobia, for example, is projected and externalized upon Palestinians, ultra orthodox Jews and non-white Jews, while the rest of the heterosexist homophobic white public and its leaders can make believe they are perfectly good liberals with no stains of prejudice on their white butts.
"On that Pride a few years ago, they finally let Dan through after some of the organizers of Pride came over and identified him. So you can imagine everyone's surprise when Shlissel, the convicted attacker from 2005, who is also an ultra orthodox Jew, was allowed in easily, with a knife.
"This leads me directly to what happened only a few hours after Pride. Someone set fire to a home in Duma, killing a baby and wounding an entire family. Why does one tragedy leads me to think about the other? Because here too, the (in) security paradigm is at work. The state of 'Israel', the most racist and deadly entity for Palestinians ever, is 'rejecting' the killer and his nondiscriminatory violence. State officials renounce and condemn him - while in the same time voting for more bombing on Gaza, ordering the police to be more violent with Palestinians (and black Jews), and giving protection to killers of children. Of course security is never the security of the Palestinians. They can only be casted to the role of the dangerous enemy, not the innocent civilian in need of protection.
"The 'Israeli' way is always to externalize the image of the violence onto the other: "The Palestinians and ultra orthodox are homophobic", "The extreme settlers are dangerous" but never the liberal white Jew leader who voted for war, who produced hate speech, who objected equality laws, never him. This is how the system is allowed to go on. The 'sane' political 'center' is legitimizing and hiding its deadly institutionalized homophobia and racism by projecting it onto the 'other'.
"Many LGBTIs die as result of stigma and enter the avoidable and sad statistics of youth suicides. Others don't get medical care fearing discrimination and humiliation (and sometimes sexual assault) in the medical institutions. A Palestinian child is killed once every three days, mostly by the state, not the extremists. Every three days! And official 'Israel' will justify these deaths, or cover up for them, or sometimes even trial the killers and reject them - but don't be fooled - all these strategies have but one goal: official 'Israel' must maintain its liberal image, must not be exposed for the killer of masses that it is, armed and racist and homophobic to the bone."
Tags: life
