JMG: Blog Year Ten
JoeMyGod@gmail.com
Gay culture, short stories, politics, and fabulous disco trivia.
Follow JMG on Twitter!
Facebook page.
RSS Feed.
Tel Aviv Pride was yesterday and in the clip below US Ambassador Daniel Shapiro happily points out the gigantic rainbow flag adorning the US embassy.
Labels: diplomacy, gay Pride, Israel, LGBT rights, Obama administration, State Department, Tel Aviv
Via the Washington Post:
The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday afternoon ordered U.S. carriers to stop flying to or from Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, prohibiting them from traveling through Israel’s largest airport after a rocket landed nearby. Airlines were banned from flying to Tel Aviv for a 24-hour period beginning on Tuesday at 12:15 p.m. The FAA said it will issue additional guidance by the end of that period. This prohibition came after a rocket landed about a mile away from the airport, the FAA said. “The FAA immediately notified U.S. carriers when the agency learned of the rocket strike and informed them that the agency was finalizing [the notice],” the agency said in a statement. “The FAA will continue to monitor and evaluate the situation.” Even before the FAA’s notice was sent out, several U.S. airlines began canceling flights on Tuesday morning and afternoon.United has suspended all service to and from Tel Aviv until further notice.
Labels: air travel, airports, FAA, Gaza War, Israel, Middle East, Tel Aviv, United Airlines
So says the Third Eagle of the Apocalypse.
Labels: 5150, batshittery, crazy people, end times, get the net, Israel, religion, State Department, Tel Aviv
In what will surely ratchet up the sadz in Teabagistan, the US embassy in Tel Aviv has posted a video of yesterday's gay pride parade with a celebratory message from Dan Shapiro, the US Ambassador to Israel. Early this week the Tea People lost their shit because the embassy had flown the rainbow flag over its Tel Aviv headquarters.
Labels: gay Pride, Israel, State Department, Tel Aviv
Labels: crackpots, douchebaggery, FRC, gay Pride, hate groups, Israel, rainbow flag, religion, Tel Aviv, Tony Perkins
Labels: Britain, gay Pride, Israel, Tel Aviv
Labels: gay Pride, Israel, LGBT rights, Obama administration, rainbow flag, State Department, Tel Aviv
At the center of the monument will be a concrete triangle containing a pink triangle, the symbol used by the Nazis used to mark homosexuals. A bench and plaque beside the monument will give information about the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust.The monument will be located in a park near Tel Aviv's gay community center.
The monument, costing NIS 150,000, was the idea of attorney Eran Lev, a member of the municipal council from the Meretz party. He began working on the project after receiving support from Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. Landscape architect Professor Yael Moriah, who was responsible for the park’s renovation over the past years, was put in charge of the planning.
“This will be the first and only memorial site in Israel to mention the victims of the Nazis who were persecuted for anything other than being Jewish,” Lev told Haaretz. “As a cosmopolitan city and an international gay center, Tel Aviv will offer a memorial site that is universal in its essence. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a monument, but a place — a place of quiet that will invite visitors to sit, contemplate, reflect and be in solitude.”
Labels: Holocaust, Israel, Nazis, Tel Aviv
“[Hagai] Felician, motivated by feelings of anger and revenge, killed and tried to kill innocent young people… solely because they happened to be at the Bar Noar club,” read the indictment, filed by the Tel Aviv district prosecution. “This despicable and criminal act caused the death of two people as well as grave damage to the minds and bodies of everyone who was in the club on the night of the murder.” After a state informant turned him in, Felician confessed his actions to an undercover officer planted in his jail cell. According to the indictment, Felician also told the undercover officer he had carried out the shooting “because of the biblical edict to attack homosexuals.” “You have everything on me, you can give yourself a pat on the back,” Felician reportedly told investigators after he realized he had spilled the beans.Felician, who was indicted today on charges of murder and attempted murder, allegedly went to the club that night to kill its founder, whom he had been told had molested his then 15 year-old cousin. Not finding his target on the premises, Felician reportedly emptied his gun on those in the room, killing two and injuring eleven. According to today's report, hate crime embellishments will now be added to the charges. The 2009 attack resulted in one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in Israeli history. (Tipped by JMG reader Eric)
Labels: Israel, murder, religion, Tel Aviv
The Pet Shop Boys - Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, recognised as the most successful duo in UK music history, are scheduled to perform in apartheid Israel to a segregated audience in Tel Aviv’s Nokia Arena on 23rd June, 2013. We are asking them to open their eyes to the ugly reality of apartheid Israel, to cancel their concert and stand with the oppressed Palestinians. Join the multitude of artists who are respecting the Palestinian call to boycott Israel. We will be picketing their appearance at the screening of Battleship Potemkin at the British Film Institute (BFI) on the Southbank in London on 19th June.Pet Shop Boys vocalist Neil Tennant has responded on their own site:
I don't agree with this comparison of Israel to apartheid-era South Africa. It's a caricature. Israel has (in my opinion) some crude and cruel policies based on defence; it also has universal suffrage and equality of rights for all its citizens both Jewish and Arab. In apartheid-era South Africa, artists could only play to segregated audiences; in Israel anyone who buys a ticket can attend a concert. Neil x
Labels: Britain, concerts, dance music, gay artists, Israel, Palestine, Pet Shop Boys, Tel Aviv
The activist is himself a suspect in the Barnoar club attack in which a gunman shot two teenagers dead and injured 15. Police earlier this week said the attack had been carried out to avenge the alleged sexual assault of a minor, by the activist. Police are convinced that the activist refuses to admit to having sexual contact with the minor only because he fears for his life. Hagai Felician, the main suspect, allegedly fired into Barnoar after a relative told him he had been assaulted by the activist, police say. Police detectives are trying to persuade the activist to admit to having sexual contact with the minor. That testimony would refute the claims of the other three suspects who say they don’t know him. The activist’s attorney, Ran Alon, would not comment on the matter, saying only “I hope my client is released to go home on Friday.”Three months ago the main informant called police from prison, where he was being held on an unrelated crime, to identify the three suspects. He told police he that as a member of the gay community he had "pangs of guilt" for his role in the crime. Police now say the informant was actually seeking revenge on the other three for "turning their backs on him." The informant, who was released from prison in order to aid in the investigation, is being placed in Israel's witness protection program. The attack resulted in one of the largest manhunts and most expensive investigations in Israeli history.
Labels: crime, Israel, murder, Tel Aviv
On Tuesday, the court approved for publication the name of the prime suspect in the shooting, Haggai Felician, 23, and an accomplice, Tarlan Hankishayev, 26, both from the Pardes Katz neighborhood in Bnei Brak. Felician set out to kill the gay activist after he heard that a relative of his, who was 15 at the time, was sexually assaulted by him, police said. The court on Tuesday did not lift the gag order on the names of the intended target or the relative of the shooter.According to a Tel Aviv official, the break in the case came three months ago when one of the three accomplices called police from prison where he was serving time for an unrelated crime. The accomplice turned informant is "himself member of the gay community and he felt pangs of guilt," according to the official.
Felician arrived at the club on the evening of August 1, 2009, thinking that the gay activist would be there, police said. However, despite discovering that the man wasn’t on the premises, he opened fire, killing counselor Nir Katz and 16-year-old Liz Trubeshi and wounding 11 others. The arrest of Felician and his suspected accomplices marked a breakthrough in a case that had police stumped for almost four years. Until their identity and motives were known, police treated the case as a possible hate crime or terror attack.
Labels: Israel, LGBT youth, murder, Tel Aviv
From the US Embassy Tel Aviv channel on YouTube:
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro marched in Tel Aviv's gay pride parade. Speaking to a crowd of thousands of marchers, he acknowledged the achievements of the Israeli LGBT community for gaining equal rights and emphasized the work of the U.S. government to raise awareness of LGBT rights around the world. After the speech, Ambassador Shapiro marched with Embassy personnel for the full parade route to Tel Aviv's Gordon Beach.
Labels: gay Pride, Israel, Tel Aviv
It is believed that the man who pulled the trigger was a hired gun who, when he did not find his target at the Bar Noar youth club, opened fire indiscriminately, killing Liz Trubeshi and Nir Katz and injuring dozens of others. While only one killer came to the club, police reportedly believe that at least two more people conspired with him and came to his aid afterward. All three are known criminals, with the killer and at least one accomplice being "soldiers" in a large, central Israeli crime organization who have been interrogated since the Bar Noar killings for arson and assault, police said.Haaretz notes that a pending bill to compensate the victims and their families is in jeopardy as the police now say that the attack was not an anti-gay hate crime.
The fourth, most recent arrest in the case, is apparently of an activist in the gay community. He has been detained for allegedly knowing the motive for the murders and obstructing the investigation by not sharing that information with police. It is believed this individual is directly connected to the motive, and that he was the target of the assassination, which involved revenge. The gag order prohibits making the motive public at this time. The activist is known to support young people in the gay community and help them with decisions regarding their sexual identity.
Gal Uchovsky, a gay culture journalist, wrote on the Channel 2 News website that an incident in which an individual walks into a gay youth center and shoots people is still a hate crime, even if his motives were personal. Uchovsky wrote that it was “conspicuous” that police made the arrest in the middle of gay pride week and that they were trying to portray the shooting as a personal vendetta and not a hate crime. “I call this a stain on the gay community,” he wrote.Two of the three suspects in the shooting are related and one would have been 16 years old at the time of the attack. All three were previously known to the police for unrelated crimes. Police says that in addition to having withheld the motive for the crime, the intended victim is "suspected of sexual offenses."
Another journalist, Danny Zack, complained that the police were being too lax because they believed “it wasn’t a Palestinian terrorist or an Orthodox Jew” who committed the crime, meaning it didn’t have a nationalistic motivation, he wrote on the Channel 2 News website.
Activists familiar with the identity of the fourth man told Ynet news they were shocked that he was a suspect in the case. “He was a father figure to us,” one of the activists said, explaining that the man had arrived at the center shortly after the shooting to try to help, and that he expressed concern that the shooter would be let off the hook by pleading insanity.
Labels: Israel, LGBT youth, murder, Tel Aviv
Investigators believe one of the suspects in the deadly 2009 shooting at the Barnoar gay youth center in Tel Aviv opened fire inside the center and killed Nir Katz, 26, and Liz Trubeshi, 16. Eleven other people were injured in the shooting attack. Police believe two other suspects aided the shooter. The Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Thursday extended the suspects' remand by 11 days. A fourth suspect, a well-known figure within the LGBT community, was arrested overnight. Police officials said the shooting is not defined as a hate crime, adding that the suspects were under surveillance for months. The police representative at the remand hearing said the main suspect incriminated himself during his interrogation and became agitated after being told there was evidence against him.According to police, the suspect said to be "well-known" to the gay community is not believed to have participated in the shooting itself, but has "valuable information" related to the attack. The other three suspects are alleged to have conspired "before and after the crime" and all three are suspected of numerous offenses unrelated to the community center shooting.
Labels: Israel, LGBT Community Center, murder, Tel Aviv
In a briefing with reporters on Wednesday night, Tel Aviv Police Commander Bentzi Sau said that in the afternoon detectives from the YAMAR investigative unit arrested three suspects they believe were involved in the shooting. Sau would not give any further details about the case, which remains under a gag order.PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the site of the shooting the following day in 2009, saying the attack had "the markings of terrorism." The shooting prompted a massive manhunt with hundreds of Israeli police and international terrorism experts involved. Some of the parents of the victims only learned that their children were gay after getting calls from local hospitals.
He did confirm however, that the suspects are Jewish and that they have ruled out a nationalist motive in the shooting. The three will be brought in to the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court on Thursday morning for a remand extension. The update was made to reporters only after police notified the families of the victims of the shooting.
Wednesday's arrests follow a previous breakthrough made by police late last year, which was announced by then Tel Aviv police commander Aharon Aksel in a conference call to reporters. That breakthrough also remains under a gag order.
"I warned in a column last year that Israel is a place which on the one hand has liberal laws, but on the other does not attempt to counter homophobia," Danny Zak, a journalist and gay rights advocate, told the Jerusalem Post during the demonstration. "A murder was waiting to happen," Zak added. "The Shas party has the blood of two innocent kids on their hands," he said. "Shas has blamed gays for earthquakes and diseases. This is incitement, but no one is put on trial for it," he said. Shas released a statement following the shooting in which it called for the attacker "to be found and tried. Murder is of course against the Torah's path and every attack is a contravention of the religion of Israel." Meretz MK Nitzan Horovitz, who is gay, arrived at the scene of the shooting. "There has been non-stop incitement," he told the Post. "I very much hope this is not the result of comments made by public figures and Knesset members. They need to understand that some people will take action." Last year, former Shas MK Shlomo Benizri said that homosexual behavior was the cause of earthquakes.Vigils were held worldwide following the attack, with demonstrations taking place in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles, Washington DC, San Francisco, and many other cities.
Labels: Israel, LGBT youth, murder, Tel Aviv
