A heartwarming display of understanding between Jews and Muslims in Israel

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1554629,00.html

Hatred (of Gays) Unites Jerusalem's Feuding Faiths

In a Holy City fissured by faith, finding a consensus on anything among Jewish, Christian and Muslim clerics is a near-miraculous occurrence. Yet Jerusalem's rabbis, priests and imams have united, however briefly, to stop the city's Gay Pride parade.

For some of their followers, the issue is worth spilling blood over: An unknown extremist Jewish group pasted up signs announcing a $500 "reward" for every gay man or woman killed during the parade, which is scheduled for Nov. 10. Several ultra-orthodox rabbis have vowed to mobilize more than 100,000 protesters to shut down Jerusalem on the day of the parade, and police warn that some groups plan to pelt the marchers with apples jagged with razor blades.

Meanwhile, in a rare display of solidarity with Jewish extremists, an influential Islamic cleric is urging Muslims to stage a simultaneous protest inside the old walled city to draw away Israeli police who would otherwise be shielding the gay parade from harm. "Not only should these homosexuals be banned from holding their parade," says one Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim Hassan, who preaches at a mosque near Damascus Gate, "but they should be punished and sent to an isolated place." Hatred, it seems, can be a bridge to inter-faith harmony.

Gay pride marches have, in fact, been held in Jerusalem for the past five years, prompting only grumbling among the city's conservatives. Then, last year, an ultra-Orthodox youth waded into the crowd of revelers and slashed three people with a knife. The furor over the parade reveals a long-standing contradiction inside an Israeli culture where secular values compete with fiercely defended religious traditions. Tel Aviv prides itself on its hip, cosmopolitan nightclubs and an easygoing "life is a beach" attitude, while an hour away, in some Jerusalem neighborhoods, ultra-orthodox men still dress in the style of 17th century Poland, with long black waistcoats and beaver-skin hats. Making up one third of the Jewish residents of the Holy City, the ultra-Orthodox ride their own buses, send their kids to religious schools, and close off streets to cars on the Sabbath. Any Tel Aviv visitor wandering into these pious communities in shorts and a T-shirt on the Sabbath has always run the risk of getting clobbered by a rock. But the violence at last year's Gay Pride parade may have been a sign that the tension between the opposite poles of Israeli identity is rising. (...)

The tension over the Nov. 10 march may have erupted even sooner had the Lebanon war not forced the cancellation of a World Gay Pride Procession that had been planned for Jerusalem this summer. Even then, one extremist, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, from the Eda Haredit rabbinic court, blamed the failure of Israel's campaign in Lebanon on "the homosexuals' obscenity and promiscuity in the Holy Land."

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. I have often thought that there are several things

Christian and Muslim fundamentalist have in common. They both publicly claim to hate guys but behind closed doors several of them have gay relationships going on. They both seem to be inordinately preoccupied with fetus's. They both think that women are subordinate to them. They both think that only they know who or what the real God is.

And these are just a few I come up with off the top of my head without really thinking about it. If they ever quite trying to destroy each other long enough to realize how much they do have in common the world is going to be in some deep shit.

[Scurrilous]

2. Rabbis to hex gay march organizers

<snip>

"A group of fervently Orthodox anti-Zionist rabbis reportedly are planning to hex organizers of the Jerusalem gay pride parade.

The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that the Edah Haredit’s rabbinic court plans to gather before the march and curse organizers and Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz with the pulsa d’nura.

The curse, mentioned in the Talmud and Zohar, is believed by some to unleash supernatural forces, and the Post quoted rabbis who said that those who have been cursed with it in the past died within a year."

http://jta.org/page_view_breaking_story.asp?intid=5447


:scared:

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

4. I wish all my enemies believed in the supernatural

Then they'd be satisfied with "hexing" me, thinking they're actually doing something, while I go on merrily with my own business.

[Mojambo]

3. There goes my plan to give the West Bank to the gays. n/t

[Benhurst]

5. Walking hand-in-hand

back into the Stone Age.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. Didn't a similar pairing occur some time ago, only it was Christians + Muslims?

Blocking some UN resolution for women's rights?

[China_cat]

6. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.