Israel's First Gay Major General Is No Cause for Pride

Yoana Gonen, Haaretz

Some may celebrate the fact that Sharon Afek, the military advocate general, is the first openly gay person to achieve the rank of IDF major general – but his unit has done some shameful things

Afek image from article

Excerpt:

Army service and parenthood have always been at the center of the struggle for equality of the Israeli LGBT community, representing a yearning for integration and for purification from the sin of abnormality. Afek himself spoke in these terms in his interview with the Bar Association journal mentioned above. “Even today, in 2017,” he said, “we encounter manifestations of ignorance and hatred of the other. It’s important to me for those young [LGBT] men and women to know that there are no glass ceilings in the IDF that limit them The IDF is the people’s army, it embraces everyone who wants to contribute and to develop in it.”

But as in the well-known saying about the Jewish people and Shabbat, no less than the army has “purified” gays, gays have purified the army – and Israeli public diplomacy [JB emphasis] is well known for its use of the LGBT community to present the country as a democracy where human rights flourish. Hence, it’s probably particularly appropriate for the first openly gay major general to be the military advocate general, who, by means of a two-pronged operation (a common military term, I presume), is capable of granting a stamp of legitimacy to military actions, both as a jurist and as a gay man. For me, at least, it’s no cause for pride.

Unlike many enlightened Israelis, who celebrated Afek’s promotion, the residents of the Gaza Strip probably care less about the fact that the person who issues legal authorizations for shelling and killing them is not straight but gay. That is so homophobic!