When did the anti-LGBT agenda, if you can call it that, become part of the Right-wing in Israel? Wherever you look, on both sides of the national camp, there are signs of open hostility to gender identity.
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On the ultra-Orthodox Right, it is the Noam party, which now waves the ideological banner of family values; a flimsy name, a euphemism, for the fight against new-style families, that is, a distinct dislike of father-father and mother-mother families. They are, of course, not alone and not the first to express this. We clearly remember similar claims by members of the Habayit Hayehudi party on the eve of the 2015 elections, along the lines of "a gay-lesbian climate is like a collective suicide." Even then they marked this issue for "emergency attention." And it's a pity because these votes concealed some wonderfully pluralistic and tolerant voices within the same party; and within the same conceptual circle.
But this event is not limited to those within the realm of religion. In recent years, certain sectors of the secular, seemingly liberal Right, have also had some incomprehensible obsession with gender discourse in general, and with transgender people, in particular.
This is often sugarcoated in the rhetoric of social marketing: We are warned of the serious consequences of the trans-industry on the mental and physical health of our children and adolescents. We are warned of a murky and dangerous wave coming to us from the US. It is possible that part of the medical establishment is slowly mustering the courage to breach the rules of political correctness and say out loud: This is a social trend that is causing irreversible damage, and cultural legitimacy is exacerbating the situation. We should listen to them, shouldn't we?
But, this is not America
Well no. This might have been a convincing argument in Israel as well, if it had not also been part of an American trend, that has been a bit forcefully translated into Hebrew, as part of the rather pressured line of importing conservative US ideas, made directly to the state of Israeli hot winds. Homophobia, in general – and transphobia, in particular – are a prominent flag in the wave of moral panic sweeping through American conservatism.
In certain sections of the US, it has become a real obsession. Economy, security, immigration: Everything has been put aside. Disney videos and the wording of school registration forms are the biggest problems concerning the world's strongest superpower. And no matter how much they try to dress up this conversation with Source sandals and Israeli-style sunhats, you can recognize the American accent right on the spot.
Between these two extremes – the ultra-conservative wing in Israel and the conservative wing in the US – stretches a simple, normal right-wing group of people. These are the ones who were never particularly ambitious in engaging in a war against the LGBT, while, on the other hand, were not overly excited when one of their own became the first gay speaker of the Knesset. These are the ones for whom it is simply not "an issue" – neither strongly in favor nor strongly against. And this is not part of a tactic of "closing their eyes" or burying their head in the sand, but because they really don't make a big deal out of it.
There is really no big mystery to crack and no ideological conflict to settle. This area is more social and progressive than it is given credit for. This is the political space that, in many cases, triumphed precisely where Israel's social-democratic Left failed – or never really wanted to succeed. This is the political space that created the conditions for the upward social mobility of the Sephardi underclass; the same economic and sectoral leadership that puts so much stress on and threatens the centers of institutional power – in particular in justice, culture, and academia.
This is the social space that has always pushed for unity governments, dialogue with political opponents, and the creation of ideological compromises. It is a fact that those who oppose this camp, always accuse its members of not being "real right-wingers." This is the social space, that despite being constantly accused of racism and incitement, has also allowed and encouraged the unexpected growth of the Arab middle class in the last fifteen years. This is also the social space that can teach his opponents how to handle demonstrations, and how to treat protests. Compare the suppression of the protest against the Disengagement [2005] or the October 2000 riots, and the police handling of the Guardian of the Walls riots or the protest against the legal reform. The differences are incomprehensible.
And just as this pluralistic, liberal, tolerant Right does not deserve to be labeled "racist" and "messianic," so it does not deserve to be labeled "homophobe," because of its loud margins. Most certainly not while large sections of this group are generating such far-reaching, symbolic, and cultural changes in their social relationship to gender identities – and even more so in the most complex and challenging cultural areas imaginable.
This is, of course, not only a matter of fairness and visibility. This disproportionate, obsessive anti-LGBT discourse has also had a bad cultural effect on the Israeli Right, which increasingly marks itself as inherently reactionary, rather than as a trailblazer: as a camp that is involved in formulating the memorandum against the partially imaginary "progressive craziness," instead of cultivating its own ideological identity; as a countermovement, whose agenda is overwhelmingly dictated in reaction to the beliefs that are dispersed on the other side of the road, and not as a sustainable movement that is setting its own agenda.
And that is even before we start discussing the more basic question, the one that is related to the vulgar invasion of another person's private space. The blatant intrusion into the conscientious, personal, and identity choices of individuals and families. To fuel the threatening, explosive, alienating atmosphere toward large sections of society.
It is a shame; a real shame that the Israeli Right, who is greatly unique in relation to right-wing movements around the world and has become an agent of tolerant and pluralistic social change now finds itself – and pardon the cliché – on the very indecent side of history.
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