On Sunday, designated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a rare rebuke to his prospective coalition colleagues for indicating they would promote laws enabling discrimination against LGBTQ people, assuring that his forthcoming administration will do no harm to their rights.
Between his Likud party and numerous overtly anti-LGBTQ groups, Netanyahu is poised to build the most ultranationalist and religious administration in Israel’s history. This has fueled worries within Israel’s LGBTQ community that the next administration, which is set to enter office next week, would reverse recent accomplishments.
Orit Struck, a Religious Zionist member of Israel’s Knesset, said her party wants to modify the country’s anti-discrimination law to allow people to avoid behaviors that contradict their religious views, such as discriminating against LGBTQ persons in hospitals.
In an interview with Kan public radio on Sunday, Struck stated that “as long as there are enough other physicians to give treatment,” Christian healthcare practitioners should be entitled to decline to accept LGBTQ patients.
Another party member, Simcha Rotman, stated that private business owners, such as hotel owners, should be entitled to reject service to LGBTQ people “if it affects their religious beliefs.”
Netanyahu released two statements condemning Struck’s remarks.
Struck’s words, according to Netanyahu, “are unacceptable to me and to members of Likud,” and the coalition agreement “does not enable discrimination against LGBTQ people or harm to their right to access services like all other Israeli residents.”
As the scandal raged on, he released a second filmed statement in which he “totally rejects” Struck’s words.
“There will be no circumstance in the nation that I will lead when a person, whether LGBT, Arab, ultra-Orthodox, or any other person, would visit a hotel and not receive treatment, attend a doctor and not receive assistance,” he added.
The scandal erupted only days after the Yediot Ahronot newspaper disclosed that another member of the Religious Zionism coalition, the far-right Noam group, once produced a list of LGBTQ journalists and stated that the “LGBT media” constituted a “incomparable strong” lobby.
Following the outrage on Sunday, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, expressed his own worries. The president is mostly a symbolic icon who serves as a moral compass and unifying force for the country.
“A scenario in which Israeli people feel endangered because of their identity or faith undermines the State of Israel’s essential democratic and moral ideals,” Herzog stated. “The racist sentiments made in recent days against the LGBT community, and more broadly against many sectors and publics, concern and distress me much.”
It was the latest sign of trouble for Netanyahu’s emerging coalition, which is dominated by far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners pushing for dramatic changes that could alienate large swaths of the Israeli public, increase the risk of conflict with the Palestinians, and put Israel at odds with some of its most ardent supporters, including the US and the Jewish American community.
The outgoing government took several small steps to advance LGBTQ rights, including lifting a ban on gay men donating blood, making gender reassignment surgery more accessible, and taking a firm stance against “conversion therapy,” the scientifically debunked practice of using therapy to “convert” LGBTQ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.
The next administration comprises two ultra-Orthodox parties that do not accept female candidates, as well as Religious Zionism, an umbrella movement led by homophobic leaders.
Members of Israel’s LGBTQ population serve openly in the military and parliament, and many well-known musicians and performers, as well as some past government ministers, are homosexual. However, LGBTQ leaders believe Israel still has a long way to go in terms of equality.
In the November 1 elections, Netanyahu and his religious and nationalist parties won a majority of Knesset seats. He said last week that he had successfully forged a new alliance. However, the government has not yet been sworn in, and Netanyahu and his coalition partners are still completing their power-sharing arrangements.
Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister for 12 years before being deposed last year.
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