Netanyahu’s new coalition makes Israeli LGBTQ community anxious
Leaders of the LGBTQ communities are afraid that the religious partners of Prime Minister-to-be Benjamin Netanyahu will curtail the rights achieved after long battles and campaigns.
TEL AVIV — Prime Minister-to-be Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to issue last week reassuring messages to members of the LGBTQ communities in Israel. An unnamed associate of his said that these members would enjoy the same rights they have had until now, including the right to hold annual gay pride parades.
Netanyahu was responding to comments by the chair of the homophobic Noam party Avi Maoz, soon to be a member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. Shortly after the elections, Maoz said in several interviews that his party would examine legal options for canceling the gay pride parades. “We will start with Jerusalem. After that, we will see about Tel Aviv,” he told one interviewer.
