By Christopher Cappiello

Regional Violence Cancels Jerusalem Pride Parade

After defying violent protests from conservative religious groups and a call from the Vatican for cancellation, the Jerusalem Pride Parade was finally canceled on Nov. 9 due to unrelated security concerns following Israeli air strikes in Gaza.

“We have always been attentive to the complex reality we find ourselves in,” organizer Hagai Elad, of Jerusalem Open House, told The Associated Press. The parade was scheduled for Friday, Nov. 10, and organizers had negotiated a new parade route in the aftermath of violent protests from the city’s ultra-Orthodox community who threatened to attempt to stop the parade if it were staged in the middle of the city. The police had promised as many as 9,000 officers to protect marchers.

That was before Israel’s air strikes on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun on Nov. 8 killed 18 civilians, mostly women and children from a single prominent family. Palestinians threatened retaliatory attacks, and Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter said the high security alert across the country made it impossible to dedicate the necessary forces to protecting parade participants.

Parade organizers agreed to replace the parade with a rally at the Hebrew University stadium. According to Haaretz.com, an Israeli news outlet, only 3,000 police officers are needed to secure the rally. As part of the agreement with police, Jerusalem Open House promised not to attempt to organize another parade this year.

In the days leading up to the decision, almost 100 people were arrested for violently protesting the impending gay pride parade, mostly members of the ultra-Orthodox Heredi community.

The Jerusalem Pride protests have spawned actions in New York, where the world’s largest LGBT synagogue, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, organized a Nov. 9 peaceful demonstration near the Israeli Consulate to counter a planned action by ultra-Orthodox Jews condemning Jerusalem Pride. “For centuries, violence has been used to intimidate, if not obliterate, marginalized groups, including Jews and gay people,” CBST Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum said in a statement. “When religious people employ those means, it is as tragic as it is predictable.”

During a 2005 gay pride parade in Jerusalem, Shai Schlissel, an ultra-Orthodox Israeli, stabbed two marchers and a third person who came to their aid. Earlier this year the World Pride Parade was cancelled in Jerusalem due to security concerns related to the military conflict between Israel and Hezbollah forces from Lebanon.

Four Convicted in St. Maarten Gay Bashing

Three men and a woman have been convicted in the April 2006 beatings of two gay American tourists on the Dutch side of St. Maarten, a Caribbean island shared by France and the Netherlands, according to the International Herald Tribune.

Judge Jan Bosch announced the verdicts on Nov. 2, convicting four French nationals of public violence and grievous bodily harm in the attacks on Ryan Smith and Richard Jefferson, employees of CBS News who were vacationing on the island at the time.

Michel Javois was sentenced to six years in prison for beating the two tourists with a tire iron. Glen Cockly and Allan Daniel received three-year sentences for their part in the attack, while Micheline Delaney will spend six months in jail for kicking one of the victims while he was on the ground. Javois is a citizen of the nearby French island of Guadeloupe, and the other three assailants are from the French side of St. Maarten.

“[Cockly and Daniel] received the lesser amount because they kicked and threw punches, but did not use the tire iron in the attack,” prosecutor Taco Stein told the Tribune. He also said that Delaney had expressed remorse over the group’s actions and had tried to stop the attack. Stein had sought an attempted murder conviction against Javois.

The attacks left Jefferson with a cracked skull, and Smith suffered brain damage and was unable to speak for several months. Both have made full recoveries.

Although pleased with the verdicts, Jefferson questioned the sentences. “Is six years, three years, or six months the proper penalty for permanently changing the lives of two tourists who came to the ‘Friendly Island’?” he said in a statement, using the island’s own promotional term.

Prosecutors never implied that the crimes were related to sexuality, but Smith disagrees. “It is because we were gay. Period. There is no question,” he told the Tribune.

U.N. Envoy Says War Costs Hurt AIDS Funding

During a three-day visit to Malawi, the United Nations special envoy on HIV/AIDS asserted that spending by the United States and its allies on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has dramatically affected efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS around the globe.

“These things of peace and security must be dealt with,” said Stephen Lewis, a Canadian diplomat and former ambassador to the United States now serving in the UN post, according to Reuters. “But when you have got a pandemic which has already taken 25 million lives and has gripped 40 million others, the world has to understand that human priorities cannot be sacrificed in the obsession with conflict.”

Quoting from a U.S. Congressional Research Service report, Lewis said that the United States is spending an average of $8 billion a month in Iraq and $1.5 billion in Afghanistan. In contrast, the 2003 President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief set a goal of spending $15 billion over five years.

At the 2005 G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the leaders of the world’s richest industrialized nations agreed to double spending on HIV/AIDS to $50 billion by 2010, including $25 billion for Africa. “It is clear that Gleneagles is falling apart and it’s not going to happen and the commitments made by the G8, as always, are betrayed right in the aftermath,” Lewis said to Reuters Oct. 31.

On Nov. 9, a little more than a week after Lewis’ remarks, the U.S. armed services requested a $160 billion supplemental appropriation to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of the 2007 fiscal year.