Barry Shaw,is Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy,at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
The mask slipped off the Tel Aviv protesters during Yom Kippur.
These “progressives” who visualize themselves as the beautiful Israeli liberal elite showed their dark side as people gathered at an outside prayer event in the closing hours of Yom Kippur.
People of all levels of Judaism gathered, as they have done in the past, to come together to feel the spirit of Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, in Israel’s cosmopolitan city.
Instead, this year, they were interrupted, insulted, and prevented from feeling the spirit of this most Jewish Day of Atonement in Dizengoff Square, especially during the closing prayers in which the shofar is sounded.
Instead of a coming together in Judaism for one day, there was political division and disruption by the people who actively support and participate in gay parades and pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrations, but feel nothing but hate and loathing against Jews, of all denominations, coming together in the collective spirit of Judaism’s most holy day.
The Tel Aviv protesters, the secular progressive Left, show Ahavat Israel to Muslims and lesbians, but not to fellow Jews.
Shame on them. They lost thousands of supporters by their malicious behavior on our most holy day.
It seems that conservative me is more progressive and liberal than these intolerant protesters.
I have no problem with gays and lesbians celebrating their differences, as long as their public displays do not descend into public lewdness.
I have gay friends and political colleagues, just as I have many Arab, Druze, Muslim, Christian friends and supporters in Israel and around the world, and we respect our differences.
But I will speak out against the losing Left in Israel whose whole campaign is drenched in lies, hypocrisy, and a growing malevolence against fellow Jews.