The Paper's special contributor Liu Bingchen
On June 10, large LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) groups and their supporters gathered in Tel Aviv, Israel's busiest city, waving rainbow flags symbolizing minorities along Tel Aviv's main streets. The Pride Parade in Tel Aviv in the middle of summer is one of Israel's most well-known events, known for its world-renowned scale and the annual participation of sexual minorities from all over the world. Tel Aviv is one of the most LGBT-friendly cities in the world, and almost the entire city of Tel Aviv enters the carnival every year when the Pride Parade takes place, with rainbow flags planted in the streets.
However, the holy city of Jerusalem, which is only an hour's drive from Tel Aviv, has always been known for its themes of religious conflict and conservatism. Jerusalem has the largest Orthodox Jewish community in the world, and the voices of sexual minorities are rarely heard. But what most people don't know is the fact that the Pride Parade also took place in Jerusalem for twenty years.
Unlike tel Aviv's parade, which demonstrates tolerance and revelry in sexual freedom and openness, jerusalem's pride parade is always fought in protest and shouting. I have participated in the Pride March in Jerusalem throughout this year and feel that the theme of the march is not simply solidarity with LGBT people, but a struggle between a small number of Jewish secularists living in Jerusalem, the city known as the "eternal capital of Israel", against left-wing groups.
Flag Parade VS Pride Parade
Just ten days before tel Aviv's Pride Parade, on the afternoon of Thursday, June 2, a large number of Israeli minorities and sexually open liberals gathered at Gan HaPa'amon in West Jerusalem, dressed up and waving rainbow flags and slogans, towards Gan Ha Atsmaut, the most prosperous of Jerusalem's city centres.
A march of sexual minorities in Jerusalem on 2 June. The pictures in this article are all provided by the author
For a modern metropolis like Tel Aviv, which boasts internationalization, liberalization and secularism, when rainbow flags are hung all over the streets, it marks Tel Aviv's entry into carnival. The same symbol is completely inapplicable in Jerusalem. But Jerusalem is not lonely, and the carnival in Jerusalem is the day when the flag of Israel is flying throughout the city. Every year around May, a grand flag parade is held in Jerusalem to commemorate israel's annexation of Eastern Jerusalem from the Arabs and the re-merger of East jerusalem into one city after the Third Middle East War in 1967. Naturally, the theme of the flag parade is a declaration of Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem and its "sacred and indivisible" capital.
On the day of the flag parade, a must-have item every year is a large number of young Israelis waving the large blue and white satellite flag of Israel into the Old City Damascus Gate, a Palestinian settlement in Jerusalem, and passing through the Muslim quarters of the Old City to reach the Western Wall, a Holy Place of Judaism. The whole process was a catharsis of contempt and hatred for the Palestinians. A grand flag parade was just held in Jerusalem on May 29 this year.
There seemed to be some sense of singing against the national flag parade, and just five days later, on June 2, the Pride Parade followed in Jerusalem. However, unlike the flamboyant style and joyful atmosphere of the national flag parade, the Pride Parade appeared tense and angry in the holy city. In order to ensure the safety of the Pride Parade, the Israeli police blocked all intersections along the parade and were guarded at regular intervals. A friend who attended the march told me that "it feels like there are more police officers in Jerusalem than there are people participating in the parade."
The reason for this massive police protection is that in previous years, during the Jerusalem Pride Parade, ultra-Orthodox Jews often attacked the "Proud People" who participated in the parade, believing that support for homosexuality was not allowed in religion, and that these "unclean" people marching in the Holy City were entirely blasphemous and defiled against the Holy City. There have even been incidents in which "proud people" who participated in the procession have been killed by Jewish Orthodox extremists who opposed the march.
Police on the streets of Jerusalem
Therefore, very different from Tel Aviv, the "Pride Parade" in Jerusalem not only has strict security measures, but also the emotions of the participants are mainly angry, and the slogans are more prominent in the "equal rights" of sexual minorities.
One of the most frequently chanted slogans during the march was "One, two, one, two, proud in Jerusalem" (Achad Shtaiim Achad Shtaiim Ga'avah BeYerushalaiim). The implication of this slogan is self-evident, namely that in ordinary times, sexual minorities do not have pride in Jerusalem, but live in the midst of verbal abuse and personal attacks by various religious groups. The procession also featured slogans related to religious issues, such as "Experience the Magic of Creation" and "Adam's lover was made by God in His own image" (Chaviv Adam SheNivrah BeTselem). There are also marchers who have replaced one of the symbols of Judaism, the small round hat (Kippa) worn by Jewish men on their heads, to a rainbow color. It is clear that such a march is a rebellion and demonstration of the dominant religious conservative group in Jerusalem, and the purpose of the marchers is not only to affirm the rights of sexual minorities, but also to pursue and maintain the secular way of life.
Rainbow-colored small round hat (Kippa)
It's not just about the LGBT community
What shocked me even more was that the march showed not only secularism and religious resistance, but also sympathy for the Palestinians. There were also crowds in the procession shouting "Enough military occupation!" (Daii LeKibush), "It is illegal to expand the settlement!" (Ma'achaz Lo Chuqi) and other slogans of the Israeli left camp. These slogans reflect the affirmative action sought by this march, not only for Israel's sexual minorities, but also for the broader oppressed Palestinians.
These slogans also give us a deeper perspective on the pride march: the different attitudes toward lGBT people are a microcosm of Israel's internal politics, complex and divided.
The Pride Parade in Tel Aviv and Mrs. Tel Aviv's support for the Parade represent not only Tel Aviv's openness and internationalization, but also the secularist groups and left-wing political groups symbolized by Tel Aviv express their confrontation with the religious groups represented by Jerusalem and the right-wing political groups. Israeli society has also been able to maintain its own pluralism and democracy in the face of such divisions and antagonisms. In order to vividly describe the extreme division and pluralism of Israeli society, some scholars have proposed the concepts of "international Tel Aviv and Jihadist Jerusalem" (Globalized Tel Aviv and Jihadist Jerusalem).
This year's pride parade in Jerusalem can show the momentum of tit-for-tat confrontation with the national flag parade, which is also related to the great changes in the current Israeli political arena.
Last June, a new Israeli government was formed, ousting former Prime Minister Netanyahu from power for 12 years and his conservative right-wing political and religious ruling coalition to form an "all-political ruling coalition" that spans left-right ideological struggles. The support and personal participation of the current Israeli health minister, Nitzan Horowitz, in the "pride march" in Jerusalem fully illustrates the political significance of the march. Because Horowitz himself is a homosexual and the leader of the left-wing Jewish party, Meretz.
Horowitz's political party is one of the key members of the current government and controls the Israeli Ministry of Health. In the midst of the pandemic, Horowitz's first big thing as health minister was not to target the coronavirus, but to approve the indiscriminate inclusion of blood donations from healthy gay people in blood banks. This policy fully demonstrates that one of the aims of the Merez Party is to fight for equal rights for the LGBT community and to eliminate discrimination against sexual minorities in Israeli society. It is worth mentioning that another purpose of the party is to pursue the coexistence of Arabs and Jews and Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The sympathy of the "proud" for the Palestinians has indeed won the recognition of Israel by many Palestinians. Because in Palestinian society, like Orthodox Judaism, Islam's attitude towards sexual minorities is extremely conservative and harsh. As a result, some Palestinian sexual minorities have chosen to embrace Israel in pursuit of individual freedom and normal life. I once interviewed a Palestinian student studying at the Hebrew University who came from a traditional Muslim family in East Jerusalem and whose grandfather was a Palestinian refugee in exile in the Gulf States and was able to return to Jerusalem in the 1990s. But he abandoned these identities, which many Palestinians take pride in, and chose to apply for Israeli citizenship. The reason he recounted was simple: "Because I am a homosexual, I am sad in the Palestinian community on the life I want, and I prefer Israeli society because Israeli society is more gay-friendly." ”
It sounds like he could be a "true proud man" in Israel. Therefore, it may not be difficult to understand the increasing number of Palestinians applying for Israeli citizenship every year published by some Israeli institutions in recent years. These people may not be all LGBT people, they may be more likely to be individualists who pursue a secular life, and they may think that in another, more diverse and open society, they will have more opportunities to pursue the secular lifestyle they want.
(Liu Bingchen, PhD student in the Department of Political Science, Hebrew University, Israel)
Responsible editor: Zhu Zhengyong Photo editor: Chen Feiyan
Proofreader: Shi Gong