Hate Crime in Tel Aviv

In Tel Aviv on Saturday two young adults were murdered while hanging out at a gay and lesbian community center. According to newspaper reports, a man dressed in black, wearing a black mask entered the room with an M-16 and opened fire onto the young people who were socializing, listening to music, snacking, relaxing, feeling safe. Two are dead, several are wounded and two remain in critical condition.

Police are searching for the criminal but have thus far not found the hateful murderer.

There is something completely shattering and heart shredding about this crime. Yes, in Israel, it is popular and even acceptable to have less than amicable feelings toward Arabs, toward foreign workers, toward refugees. It turns out, in fact, that Israel suffers from more than its fair share of xenophobia, racism, sexism and all of the other "isms" that can be classified as the ills of society.

But I believe that what happened in Tel Aviv yesterday, to a group of teenagers who meet together to discuss how to deal with their being "different" from "mainstream" society with all of its institutionalized fictions, is absolutely blood curdling. And I am fearful of what it means for Israeli society as a whole.

True, more unbelievable things have happened. For example, the murder of Prime Minister Rabin by the hands of a religious zealot. If a Jewish-Israeli could assassinate the Israeli Prime Minister in cold blood at a peace rally, perhaps anything can happen.

So maybe with perspective, societies, within their makeup, set themselves up for these tragedies from time to time, that may or may not serve as a wake up call to the realities -- of the convoluted and intermingling dynamics of co-existence, or, resistance to diversity -- on-the-ground. And the most tragic part in the aftermath, in addition to the loss of loved ones, of dignity, of perceived images of our open society, our Tel Aviv of many colors, streams, peoples and so on, is how unprepared we are to deal with what all of this means. And how to deal with the situation before we have all of the facts, or even a lead on a suspect that could be apprehended by the police.

After discussions with friends and mulling things over myself, I believe the suspect could be member to one of two streams of society. Either, the perpetrator is a religious person, as the newspapers are presuming, an activist who took to heart the homophobic message of the religious parties such as Shas, which is being singled out as the harbinger of this hatred. Perhaps a young man with questionable mental stability served as the perfect candidate to carry out this sickening vision of divine justice, as some communities have quietly feted this act to be. Or, the individual is part of the neo-Nazi movement in Israel. Yes, the neo-Nazi movement in Israel that is primarily populated by non-Jewish Russian immigrants who forged documents to gain citizenship to a state desperate to win the demographics game against the rising Arab population.

If either of these suspects prove to be the criminal, in my opinion both are equally foreboding and worrisome.

Because how does a society deal with intolerance against a population -- a tax-paying, social security paying, army serving, active and contributing sector of the people? If it is a matter of education, then I believe the damage is already done. Indoctrination of this sort has gone on for years and now someone has come of age in that environment and acted on the hatred and fear of other, that teachers, parents and community members taught him, or her. How does a society address this hatred if the education is taking place within the religious school system over which the secular government seems to have no authority over, and, in light of the glue that keeps the coalition of the current government together, a government which seems to cater to this population's demands to the detriment of the rest?

If it is a neo-Nazi group, what sort of apparatus can be set up in a society, in part, made up of victims or offspring of victims of a Nazi regime? A society in which Nazi ideology -- discriminating, hunting and murdering of another human being in the name of removing that identity from humankind -- seemingly could never take hold. If we cannot even conceive that it could happen, then it is difficult to grasp how to manage once the inconceivable occurs.

Call it Nazi, call it neo, call it fundamentalism, we have a problem.

The police's response or recommendation to the community following the shooting was to close down the city's gay and lesbian clubs and other centers devoted to these people in Tel Aviv. If I'm not mistaken, that is an action signaling the success of terrorism. I live in Israel, and if I'm not mistaken, once again, last time I walked into my university or a local cafe or a busy restaurant or a mall or a doctor's office building or a bank (I can go on) a security guard sat at the entrance, checking bags and faces. So why close down the community and its businesses and support centers? Why not beef up the security? The gay community has been violated, abused, traumatized and threatened. It is the unnegotiable duty of the government and its law enforcing bodies to ensure the safety and security of this population, that they may be allowed to live their lives free of fear from being targets of hate crimes.

As word spread in the hour following the shooting, members of the gay community and friends gathered in a demonstration against the hateful act. In moments like these there is comfort in the public gathering, to be in solidarity against what is ugly, destructive and putrid in our human inclination. But what comes next? How does whatever it is, come next? Who will lead? Who has the answers, and how will this never happen again?