Gay Rights, YES; Jewish Rights, NO!

Gary Cooperberg
November 13, 2006

The alleged “high court of Justice” in Israel has demonstrated clearly that it neither enforces justice, nor does it possess genuine esteem for either democratic nor Jewish values. Few people know that Israeli Law permits Jews to pray on the Temple Mount. They are prevented from doing so only by an “escape clause” which states that should the police determine that as a result of Jewish prayer the Arabs are likely to riot, and thus create a situation of danger, the police have the right to prevent Jews from praying there. The police neither wish to expose worshipers to danger, nor are they willing to invest the force necessary to protect them while exercising their legal rights, so they simply deny them those rights. The Arabs have taken note of this “escape clause” and are only too happy to provide the riots which enable Jewish police to deny Jews the right to pray on their holiest site. As such it has become an axiomatic fact that Jews are not permitted to pray there!

This same “high court of Justice”, in total disregard to the sensitivities of Jews, issued a permit for homosexuals to parade their brand of lifestyle in the streets of Jerusalem. After all the legal protests fell on deaf ears, a large number of hereidi Jews decided to take a lesson from the court’s reaction to Arab “demonstrations”. Clearly if the court permits Arab rioters to prevent Jews from exercising their legal right to pray; it would seem logical to assume that it would (democratically) follow that it would permit Jewish rioters to prevent queers from exercising their legal right to parade their brand of immorality in the streets of Jerusalem.

Strangely enough this logical conclusion did not apply. The same court which would not suffer the police to muster the troops needed to protect Jews from Arab rioters, had no trouble mandating the police to use whatever forces they needed to enable the gays to parade their immorality in the streets of the holy city.

Perhaps there is a brilliant lawyer somewhere in Israel who can at least use this obvious dual standard to demand that the police permit Jews the right to exercise their legal right to pray on the Temple Mount. It really wouldn’t take a genius to present the case, nor would it take a judge with the wisdom of Solomon to determine what to do. All it would take is a court which possesses honesty, courage and a genuine sense of justice. Thus there is little hope for a change under the present system.