While I don't really know anything about the plight of the LGBT community in Jerusalem, I imagine that living in such a religious city certainly doesn't make life any easier. One of the websites mentioned how recently a member of a gay rights march was stabbed several times by a protester. Reading about this brought up two questions. Is it common for violent acts to be perpetrated against gays in and around Jerusalem, and secondly, if violence is an issue of concern is the Israeli government working to prevent it?
For two reasons I would expect the Israeli government to be more proactive in dealing with violence perpetrated against the LGTB community. The first reason is due to the fact that these issues deal with Israeli citizens. I assume that it would be more difficult to ignore crimes committed against full citizens than non-citizens like in the case of the Palestinians. The political climate in Israel should also lead the government to be quick to deal with these types of crimes. While Israel does have a large and extremely vocal orthodox population a large portion of the population is also secular. I hope that the latter would work to ensure the freedom and protection of all Israelis. Israel did allow gays to openly serve in the military, therefore I would expect social progress to slowly continue within the country.
I had the same thought - that it would be so much easier to ignore crimes committed against Palestinians than Israeli citizens. It's interesting to see how this issue, which is something that is still being dealt with in the United States today, is being dealt with in Israel.
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