There is a very interesting news story on the Ynet website. A gay Palestinian who lives in Israel (with his Jewish partner) visited his mum and dad in the West Bank. He had to do so secretly, as the Arab residents of his parents’ village had vowed to murder him because of his sexuality.
After visiting his parents the man was held up at the checkpoint back into Israel for security reasons. This left him stranded overnight: he couldn’t get home to Israel but couldn’t return to his parents’ village because of the murder threats.
He found sanctuary when a religious Jewish settler took him into his home.
It’s a great story and lots of people will be surprised by it. Personally I wasn’t surprised. Perceptions of the ‘settlers’ have always been wildly inaccurate and Israel has an astonishingly tolerant approach to gay people by any standards, let alone those of a Middle Eastern nation that is just 61 years old. Israel is so brilliant: a democratic state with freedom of speech and a free press, a judiciary that often rules against the government, a fine record on women’s rights and gay rights, and it is a leading innovator environmentally.
And all this from a state that has faced unparalleled threats and peril from the first day of its existence. Its record should have any decent person in the world on their feet in rapturous admiration. I long for the day when more will join the applause.
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Well said. Chaz why do you think more people do not get it?
Schmuel:
People don’t get it because, contrary to the legendary reach of the supernatural powers accredited to the Elders of Zion, there’s a much more powerful cabal that has been disseminating lies about Israel for at least the last 40 years or so.
Spot on again Chas!
The one pretty much unarguable fact is that Israel is a beacon of sanity for LGBT people in the region. Nice one
Chas, yes but why was he held up overnight? This is important. It’s because he was a terrorist, this is true. Therefore it doesn’t matter what point you are trying to make about Israel, you are defending terrorists and the idiots who help them.
Thanks for commenting but you’ve misread the article and the point I am making.
Chas, I don’t think I have – what exactly have I misread? Surely my point is a fair one, i fail to see what is so brilliant about letting a terrorist back into the country after he has been to “visit his parents”. (Unless (and this doesn’t even bear thinking about so I’ll assume you won’t), he actually posed no threat whatsoever and him not being allowed to go home is just another example of the low-level dehumanisation of the Palestinians? Nah, you’re right, I have just misread it.)
Ah, I get it. I thought that was where we were headed. Fair play – if only all my anti-commenters were so imaginative.
Just for the record: I don’t know the details of the man’s case, nor why he was not allowed back into Israel immediately. The only people who know why he was delayed are the security forces who do such a great job of protecting Israel and who prevent countless terror attacks each year. If he is innocent then I hope he is allowed home quickly, if he hasn’t been already.
Very interesting, Barry Day, that you choose to focus upon the issue of the man’s bureaucratic troubles at the border instead of the fact that his life was threatened for being gay!
As I’m sure you know, I as an Israeli am not allowed to travel to those parts of the West Bank under PA control. Does that ‘dehumanise’ me? I also can’t go to a whole host of other countries in the Middle East and beyond. I think I need a visa for the USA too. Such a lot of ‘dehumanisation’ going on in this world….or is it only when Israelis are involved?
We had similar bureucratic troubles in east Belfast a few years back..bureucratic plastic bullets shattering little kids skulls and so on…sigh.
Chas there appers to be a typo in your last comment.Surely
If he is innocent then I hope he is allowed home quickly, if he hasn’t been already.
should read
If he is innocent then he has nothing to fear?
or even
If he is innocent then he won’t mind being held without charge for a few months will he?
Barry Dad – what about the high level dehumanisation of suicide bombs? How would you stop them from coming into Israel?
Astonishing – an evil, zionist settler (boogy boogy) saves the life of a gay Palestinian and what does Barry Day complain of? The bureaucracy of security checkpoints which surprisingly are erected at many international borders, not just those those between Israel and the West Bank.
It seems that as long as a Star of David is somewhere in your makeup, some fool will find a way to put you in the wrong.