“Freedom fighters” who take an extreme position in the ongoing struggle for Palestinian self-government, blowing themselves up along with innocent bystanders both Jew and non-Jew, in pursuit of that goal is one thing (and here I am mindful that one person’s “freedom fighter” is another person’s “terrorist” - but this column is not about discussing that aspect); opening fire on teenagers congregating at a gay youth centre is something else.

Compounding the shock, at least for me, is the understanding that Israel as a country and as a culture has a profound understanding of the evils of persecution, of pogroms, of mass killing of a targeted group. Of course, just because a nation’s ethos is predicated on an ideal doesn’t mean everyone who is a citizen of that country shares that ethos.

Are there Jews who hate and despise homosexuals? Of course there are. The emotional reactions against Pride festivals being held in Jerusalem bear this out. Certainly Orthodox Jews, who hold considerable say in the workings of the state of Israel, are vehemently opposed to what they perceive as the perversion of God’s plan for His people and constantly attempt to block any progress in Israeli GLBTQ rights.

In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox protester stabbed three marchers during a Jerusalem Gay Pride parade.

According to the Associated Press, Shlomo Benizri, a member of Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, who sits for the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, was quoted as saying that earthquakes were God’s punishment for Israel’s tolerance of the gay and lesbian community. The last person to suggest that was the Sixth Century AD Byzantine Emperor, Justinian I. However, to their credit, leaders within the Shas Party were quick to condemn the attacks as well.

Such statements, however, are noteworthy primarily for their uniqueness. The true nature of Israelis was evidenced by the hundreds and thousands who took to the streets, in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, on both Saturday (the Jewish and Muslim Sabbat) and Sunday (the Christian Sabbath), to voice their outrage over the shootings.

Israel is not only a beacon of democracy in the eastern Mediterranean, surrounded as it is by Islamist theocracies and dictatorships (all of which are intent on “driving the Jews into the sea”), but it is one of the most GLBTQ-tolerant, one might even say GLBTQ-accepting, nations on earth.

Israel was on the forefront of establishing legal precedents in regards to GLBTQ equality rights, or at least lesbigay equality rights (to be honest, I am not sure of the status of trans rights in Israel).

The Israeli Supreme Court has passed much groundbreaking legislation, including recognition of gay marriages, the right of same-sex couples and individuals to adopt children, and other anti-discrimination laws.

In 1992, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin introduced a law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation. This amendment was generally perceived as a major landmark in recognizing gay men, lesbians and bisexuals as equal members of society. Then in 1993, he introduced another law abolishing sexual orientation discrimination in the Israeli military, during a period when the world’s other great democracy, the United States, was introducing its notorious “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

While local coverage, and coverage in North America generally, was limited, the Internet as usual is full of commentary and reports. Google “Tel Aviv Gay Killings” and over 2,200,000 hits pop up. Plus, Israeli politicians, regardless of political stripe, have been unanimous in condemning the attacks, which killed two and injured between 11 and 15 people (reports vary on the actual number).

Four of the 13 were taken to hospital with serious injuries. Pictures showing the blood-stained aftermath of the attack, perpetuated by a lone masked gunman, were widely distributed throughout Israeli media. Witnesses described seeing bodies strewn on the floor surrounding a billiards table and just inside the entrance to the centre.

Within hours of the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the centre after the attack to show his support, said of the killer, “We’ll bring him to justice and exercise the full extent of the law against him.” President Shimon Peres described the shootings as “despicable murder” that “a cultured and enlightened people cannot accept.”

Nitzan Horowitz, an openly gay member of the Knesset described the killings as a “hate crime.”

“We demand that the government put an end to this hate campaign and that the Education Ministry institute proper information and education at schools in order to prevent the recurrence of such shameful events,” Horowitz said, according to Reuters.

A “senior Tel Aviv police source” has stated a personal feud may have been the catalyst but caution the investigation is in its early stages and it is far too soon to make any sort of conclusions as to what prompted the attack.

There is no indication as to what proof the Tel Aviv police might have to suggest this allegation and it seems to me that the anonymous source was ill-advised to issue a statement like “[The GLBTQ community was] too quick with the rallies and the slogans. It’s not at all clear - the motive for the attack may have been personal, rather than a general targeting of the community.”

That in itself smacks of a homophobic reaction. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time it has been suggested that we are so unstable that we can easily turn homicidal over jealousy or some real or perceived slight.

Hmmm...spend a Saturday night in your typical gay bar and compare that to your typical night in a straight bar and then try and tell me gay men will “lose it” over being jilted, seeing an ex-lover with a new man, turned down, or “just because”. Compare this to your average straight male club clientele who seem to engage in constant yelling matches and fisticuffs in the parking lot or along neighbouring residential streets for little or no reason apart from a bad mix of alcohol and testosterone (and, I’ve long suspected, sexual frustration, but that’s just a suspicion).

The personal grudge theory doesn’t seem to hold up well when one looks at who was killed; Nir Katz, 26, a youth counsellor, and Liz Troubishi, 17.

Katz has been described as someone who “believed in his own way, lived for years with [his] boyfriend, [and whose] goal was to help people who were struggling and who were still in the closet. He considered it a mission.”

Troubishi has been described as “a closed off and introverted person” who didn’t make an issue of being lesbian at all.

Neither of these individuals sound much like the sort of personality that would provoke someone into donning a black Ninja-like uniform, covering their face, and striding into a recreational centre and spraying the area with an automatic rifle. Being a raging little homophobe just might, however.

Naturally, various bloggers are firing off opinions right, left, and centre (both metaphorically and literally speaking). One blogger, veteran leftist politician and editor of the Middle East Journal of the Middle East Institute based out of Washington D.C., Yossi Sarid, made a particularly interesting observation in his August 3 blog.

“...The Israeli media coverage has been heavy, but certain things are left unsaid, or rather are revealed in code. Two points to note in most of the reportage: officially it is said the incident was a hate crime and ‘did not have a terror motive,’ (translation: it’s an Israeli shooter, not an Arab), and the shooter used ‘an automatic weapon such as an M-16 rifle.’ (The M-16 uses 5.56mm ammunition. The AK-47 in common use by the Palestinian authority and other Palestinian groups is generally chambered for 7.62mm.) (The M-16 is standard issue for the Israel Defense Forces but is also widely held by reservists, which means most Israelis.) So the unspoken message of these code phrases is, this was an Israeli, not an Arab, shooter, and thus probably a fundamentalist Israeli opposed to open gay associations.”

This is interesting as it undermines any suggestion the attack on the youth centre has anything to do with the Palestinian issue or anything to do with the antipathy, to be polite, surrounding Arab nations have towards Israel. This clearly, then, was not an attack on Israelis but on queer Israelis, particularly on young queer Israelis, who are, by definition, the future of the GLBTQ movement in Israel. The attack, despite the meanderings of the anonymous “senior Tel Aviv police source”, has all the earmarks of a political act, albeit a perverted one.

How do we protect not only ourselves, but our future? Here in Canada, we feel pretty safe, by and large. Over the years, we have struggled for, and won, many equality battles. So did Israeli GLBTQ activists. We believe ourselves to be living in a civilized, decent democracy. So do the Israelis, not withstanding bombardment from Hamas and other Islamists. We are free to come and go as we please. Overall, so are those who live and work in Tel Aviv, one of the most cosmopolitan and urbane cities in Israel, if not the world. And still, this sort of outrage can occur.

I don’t know how we can protect ourselves or our youth. Education? Certainly, and not just in our schools but of society in general. Refusing to cower and hide? Absolutely, standing up to the bullies and tyrants of this world takes balls (or ova) but nothing, absolutely nothing, is accomplished by trying to meekly placate them, either. If they’re going to take us down, then they may as well take us down with us refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing us whimper.

This is something the founders of the modern state of Israel understood. They would no longer allow the perception of the weak, timid, bookish Jew hiding in his ghetto tenement or shtetl hovel refusing to fight back or stick up for himself to stand. In its place the strong and proud Jewish warrior, the Sabra, and his civilian counterpart, the Kibbutzim (communal farmers who developed so much of what is now Israel) defined the modern Jewish sensibility.

Did this prevent attacks against Israelis by those who wish to annihilate them? No. Will standing up and refusing to be intimidated by bullies and psychos stop the intimidation? No. But as someone far wiser than I once said, the meaning is in the doing. It is the act of standing up, of refusing to be intimidated, that counts and may lead to the intimidation eventually ending. Doing nothing and allowing it to continue only ensures it will continue.

The reaction of the Israeli GLBTQ community, and the nation’s leaders, speak clearly to their refusal to be intimidated ever again. Whether or not the perpetrator of this crime is ever found and brought to justice, and one hopes he will be, it is the act of refusing to be intimidated, of not allowing this act to slam shut the closet doors, that is important.