You know we have differences of opinion on this.
But I have already seen one very VERY moderate Muslim blogger- the type we truly wish more Muslims would be- point to this as evidence that Israel is not as tolerant, free, or Democratic
as they claim to be.

Losses like that- little shifts of opinion- might be invisible but they are important and they add up.

Of course the other extreme of the Muslim world would see it differently- the Jews are corrupt if they let the gays march at all. There's no winning with some people, but I still think they blew an opportunity to show an example.

This will not go well. It is not fair or right, but it is a fact that one has to act differently when one is under a microscope. I think people across the West have forgotten- there are times to speak out, and times to shut up and not project internal disputes for others to see and exploit.

Ben

Ben:

Yes, it's too bad that the authorities of a secular Jewish state can't guarantee the safety of the gay paraders against threats of Jewish extremists, who have, on very rare occasion, murdered Jewish politicians and Muslim worshippers at worship and Islamic jihaddists who target all sorts of people on a daily basis, but the gays are still being allowed to assemble on mass and in relative safety. Show me a Muslim state -- however nominally secular -- where gays are accommodated at all?

The annual march isn't intended to be provocative, but to be assertive. The point is to bring to the attention of their fellow J'mites that they exist, and have to be dealt with. The message is "we're here, we are your neighbours and your friends, we're not going anywhere, and this is just as much our city as yours; feel free to disagree with us, but don't pretend we don't exist, or that we don't have the same rights everybody else does".

It would make little sense to hold the Jerusalem Pride parade in some other city, would it? And over the 5 years or so that this parade has existed, it has had its own nature, a rather tame one, reflecting the conservative nature of the city and its residents, including the gay ones. It's not an extravaganza of crudity and exhibitionism, like the parades in NYC, SF, or Tel Aviv; it's more like the ones that take place in Middle America every year, and attract little attention from the press.

Well, but, Jerusalem is not middle America and its parade every year attracts much attention from the press. This one was covered extensively on the front page of all the British media websites, for example.

The componenets of Jerusalem's population is also entirely different. And the fact that it is a holy city, which in my experience, weighs much on the mind of its inhabitants.

Besides there are places where being assertive is being provocative.

For the record, I'm not for a heterose*ual parade in Jerusalem either.

Beyond that, I just don't much like parades. I think of them as traffic jammers.