Yael Sarah ref12.30.22 12:58 Friday in Tevet Tishpag
Amir Ohana, Speaker of the Knesset (Photo: Yonatan Zindel, Flash 90)
When supporters and members of the “Proud Flags” protested outside the Knesset yesterday, MK Amir Ohana assumed the position of Speaker of the Knesset yesterday (Thursday). In spite of the humiliated views of Gafni and Prush from Torah Judaism who had trouble digesting LGBT people in one of the most important symbols of the government, Ohana stood on the stage of the Knesset swore allegiance to the most stately position in the Mishkan and thanked his spouse and children.
In a moment no less than historic, the new Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana spoke about his proud family and said: “Alon is with me, the other half of my life for a little more than 18 years – my anchor, the wise and the good, and our beloved children Ella and David”, and added: “This Knesset, led by this Speaker, will not harm them or any child or family – N-K-W-D-H. And if there is a boy or girl watching the inauguration here today, know that it doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from – you have the power to go wherever you want.”
Outside stood thousands of ultra-Orthodox protesters from the new government that was established yesterday. Many of them came as a result of the initiative of Yili Karlich, activist and chairman of the Green Headquarters in the Yesh Atid party.
Yili, an unknown person until a few days ago, was interviewed this week by almost every media outlet and talked about the harm to the LGBT community – All this in perfect coordination with the messages of the Yesh Atid party. In closed conversations last week, he said that he was sent on behalf of Yorai Lahav to organize a demonstration dealing with the LGBT issue.
(Photo: Civil Order 8 to save democracy)
In fact, Bis Atid defined an official line of struggle against the new government, with party officials saying that it was decided to invest efforts in the coming year in the issue of the rights of the gay community. An issue that the Yesh Atid party regretted on its flag from day one as part of its liberal values and has made headlines in recent weeks.
Last week there was also an “emergency conference of the gay community” in the Knesset, following the publication of Noam’s blacklist, in which the names of media persons from the LGBT community were mentioned.
The efforts include, among other things, the establishment of a call center for LGBT people, a package of laws prepared by the party, including a law prohibiting “conversion treatments” of sexual orientation and monitoring the achievements of the past year in issues related to the gay community, such as half a million shekels allocated by Merev Cohen, the outgoing Minister for Equality Social, for information on the LGBT issue in the religious sector.
In fact, the LGBT community does not have too many rights that the upcoming government can take away. Even if a law is enacted that allows conversion treatments, it will simply return the situation to the way it was before the outgoing Minister of Health, Nitzan Horowitz, a member of the LGBT community himself, issued CEO’s circular banning sexual orientation conversion treatments.
For this reason, the struggle of the Noam party, as well as Struck and Rothman from religious Zionism and other MKs from the coalition – is first of all a symbolic struggle.
The rights of the gay community can be taken away through social and public delegitimization, as they were given to it by social and public legitimation that in recent years has significantly expanded to the periphery, mainly under the Likud and Netanyahu rule.
Even in the Otzma Yehudit party, which appeals to an audience in the periphery, they understand the public sentiment and in recent weeks have been wary of statements against the gay community in an attempt to portray themselves as liberals, this despite the fact that the Minister of Heritage on their behalf, Amichai Eliyahu, has been active in promoting treatments that deal with changing sexual orientation.
“Yesh Atid” and the other partners of the liberal camp are expected to face a difficult challenge. While the opposition will try to paint a dark government that will harm LGBT rights, Likud will work to emphasize their liberal identity. Ohana, as an openly gay Knesset speaker, is just one of the steps in Netanyahu’s attempt to calm the spirits on the matter.
Outgoing Prime Minister and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid yesterday at the swearing in of the government, photo: Knesset spokeswoman
At the beginning of November, Minister Galit Distal addressed the gay community’s fear of Avi Maoz on News 13 and said: “Behind Avi Maoz stands the liberal flagship of the Likud, the list that flew gay Amir Ohana to the head of the list. In the last decade, the Likud took the LGBT revolution out of Tel Aviv’s borders and reached the restaurant from Sderot and Alona in Roham.”
With this, Distel summed up the revolution that happened here in recent years on the subject, a cross-sector revolution that went from the center to the periphery and turned the issue of the LGBT community into a consensus, precisely during the Likud era.
Now, Beish Atid and the leftist camp are trying to incite anger against the government and bring people to the streets when they use the “discrimination law” as a motive to wake up the area – but mainly and first of all around the LGBT issue. all This, while other publics that may be harmed by Smotrich’s “discrimination law” – women, Arabs, Ethiopian immigrants and other minorities, are absent from this discourse. They don’t talk about them or to them.
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