Time to Learn from Israel

Today's edition of The Australian's Cut & Paste gives the Green Left Weekly (not to mention the Spanish) a well-deserved pasting for its naivete and failure to call a spade a spade:

"Green Left Weekly on Sunday on the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras: MUSLIMS Against Homophobia, a recently formed support group for queer Muslims in Sydney, made a groundbreaking appearance in the parade. In the past, most Muslim societies were sexually permissive. Some Muslim countries, especially those in the Middle East, had a widespread homosexual culture that tolerated sexual relationships between men. But the moralistic colonial authorities, mostly strict Christians, disapproved of sex between men and banned it."

"Britain's The Guardian newspaper, June 9 last year: A DELEGATION of gay residents of Tel Aviv has been banned from joining a gay pride march in Madrid because authorities in the Israeli city have not condemned the recent attack on the Gaza flotilla. The Tel Aviv group [has] reacted angrily to the decision. 'Don't they know that Islamist fundamentalists don't just want to finish off Israel but that they also believe homosexuals should 'cure themselves' or die?'"

"BBC News, 2003: "GAY Palestinian men are risking their lives to cross the border into Israel, claiming they feel safer among Israelis.* Gay Palestinians say they are mainly persecuted at home because of religious attitudes. Many Muslims claim that homosexuality is strictly against the Koran."

"Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade travel advisory for Iran, March 4: HOMOSEXUAL acts are illegal in Iran for both men and women and penalities include the death penalty and corporal punishment."

"President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia University, September 24, 2007: IN Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you we have it."

Like Ahmadinejad, those Muslim-loving lefties are in total denial about Muslim homophobia! If only Muslims would take a leaf from Israel's book:

"An Israeli umbrella organization encompassing gay and lesbian groups told prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that ministers in his government are guilty of incitement against the homosexual and transgender community... A Haaretz-Dialog poll has found that nearly half of the Israeli population believe that homosexuality is a perversion. The poll, conducted under Prof. Camil Fuchs, finds that 46% of the people surveyed answered the question 'Do you see homosexuality as a perversion?' In the affirmative, while 42% answered that it was not a perversion. Twelve percent said they did not know. The survey also finds that 71% of the ultra-Orthodox population believe homosexuality is a perversion. So do 67% of the religious (Orthodox), 64% of the Arabs, 57% of the Russian speaking immigrants, 44% of the observant (traditional) Jews and 24% of the secular population." (Gay leaders to Netanyau: Your ministers incite against us, Kosharek, Yaron & Ilani, Haaretz, 6/8/09)

"Rabbis from the religious Zionist community have launched an initiative to marry gay men to lesbian women - with some surprising successes. So far, 11 marriages have been performed... [Rabbi] Harel introduced [Ronni and Etti], and as the first of his gay-lesbian couples, they term themselves 'guinea pigs'. They are careful to keep up normal appearances before the children and the outside world, even sleeping in the same room, though they don't sleep together. Their children were born through artificial insemination." (Israeli rabbis launch initiative to marry gay men to lesbian women, Yair Ettinger, Haaretz, 11/3/11)

"Jewish fundamentalists have displayed severe enmity against Jews who adopt a different sexual life style. Many Israeli rabbis and the Israeli religious political parties in the 1990s reacted sharply against the increased visibility and power of the homosexual and lesbian communities in Israel. According to the Halacha (Jewish religious law), homosexuality is punishable by death by stoning, and, although the punishment is not clear, lesbian relations are forbidden." (Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Shahak & Mezvinsky, 2004, p xviii)

[*And they lived happily ever after in the Jewish state, right? Well... not exactly: "The man said he fled to Israel. There, he says, he was placed under virtual house arrest because he was viewed as a potential security risk." (Palestinian gays flee to Israel, newsvote.bbc.co.uk, 22/10/03)]