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Israel shouldn't turn battle for gay rights into right-left conflict

The LGBT battle for an equal society crosses the Israeli political spectrum, which is why its members should not have alienated right-wing politicians who wished to participate at the rally commemorating the murder of a teenager at the gay pride parade.
People react during a candlelight vigil in Tel Aviv, Israel, for Shira Banki, who died on Sunday of stab wounds sustained when an ultra-Orthodox man with a knife attacked a Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem three days ago, August 2, 2015. High school student Banki, 16, was one of six people wounded in the assault. Her death highlighted the city's sharp social divisions between Orthodox and secular Jews. REUTERS/Baz Ratner - RTX1MRMX
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There was very little time between the stabbing incident at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade July 30, in which Shira Banki, 16, was killed, and the arson-related murder the next day of 1½-year-old Ali Dawabsha in the village of Douma near Nablus. Just a few hours separated the events, creating a sense of continuity between them in Israel’s public discourse.

Both incidents were hate crimes that left innocent people dead and wounded. When the perpetrator of the gay pride stabbing was caught, people were shocked to learn he was an ultra-Orthodox Jew named Yishai Schlissel. He had been released from prison just three weeks earlier after serving a 10-year sentence for stabbing three people at the Jerusalem gay pride parade in 2005.

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