Jerusalem Gay Pride Event Cancelled

I've written several times about the attempts by anti-gay Jews, Christians and Muslims to join forces in stopping a gay pride event in Jerusalem scheduled for the next couple weeks. Turns out that the outbreak of war with Hezbollah and Hamas was enough to actually do that:

This year's GLBT WorldPride parade, scheduled for Aug. 10 in Jerusalem, has been canceled because local police say they can't protect it...

Because antigay Orthodox Jews threatened to stage massive counterdemonstrations, Jerusalem police had planned to bring in officers from other cities to help protect the WorldPride march.

But, because of the new war with Hezbollah guerrillas and Lebanon, those officers are not available. In addition, some members of Jerusalem's police force have been deployed outside of the city, closer to the war zones.

The organizers of the event are graciously accepting that explanation:

"The police are saying that for them to provide ample security they need to bring substantial reinforcements from other parts of the country," El-Ad said. "We appreciate the sincerity in that statement. ... Last year it took many hundreds of police to protect the Jerusalem pride march, and the police preparations for this year's march were in the thousands of officers."

El-Ad said that unlike last year, when the Orthodox community mostly ignored the annual local pride parade and "only a few hundred people rioted against us ... this year the Orthodox community realized that WorldPride has so much visibility that it is impossible to ignore the event."

"As a result, they embraced a new strategy to call for massive demonstrations," he said.

Hopefully, the event will be rescheduled after the hostilities are over.