The researchers stressed that there have been no comprehensive medical studies carried out in Israel regarding these matters, and that they had to extrapolate from studies carried out in other Western countries. It called on the government to conduct such studies and to mount an information campaign to warn the LGBT community of the risks to which they are prone.
It also called on the medical community to establish gay clinics and on the government to conduct an education campaign among doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists regarding gay issues and needs.
In the section on military service, the report traced the army’s changing attitude toward homosexuality and pointed out that until 1998, each of the regulations regarding gay men and lesbians discriminated against them.
It also accused current Chief Education Officer Brig.-Gen. Elazar Stern of shutting down the army magazine Bamahane because it published a cover article on an openly gay officer, Col. Eli Sharon.
Stern has denied that he opposed the article or that he had anything against homosexuals. The report, however, rejected his statements. “We believe that the affair of the suspension of Bamahane is a highly embarrassing one for the army in general and for Stern in particular, whose biased opinions were revealed in public,” the report stated. “It would be a good thing were Stern to encourage the magazine to publish as many articles dealing with social issues as possible.”
In the political section of the report, the researchers blasted two Shas representatives, then-Health Minister Shlomo Benizri (now labor and social affairs Minister) and Knesset member Nissim Ze’ev for their anti-homosexual statements. Nissim called homosexuals “animals” and Benizri described homosexuality as a “genetic defect.”
The report gave the highest marks to the Meretz Party for its policy regarding homosexuals and pointed out that neither of the big parties included the struggle for equal rights in its platform for the February 2001 elections.
The report called on gay and lesbian Knesset members to come out of the closet and openly declare their sexual preferences as the most important contribution they can make in the struggle for equal rights.