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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/28637/full/28637/u-s-military-could-learn-from-israel-gay-ex-idf-officer-says/ <br /><br /> <b>U.S. military could learn from Israel, gay ex-IDF officer says</b> <br /> Friday, March 10, 2006 | by <p>alexandra j. wall </p> <br /><br /><p>Avner Even-Zohar spent six years in the Israel Defense Forces, and in that entire time, he never told any of his fellow soldiers he was gay.<br /><br /> “When I was in the army, my understanding was that I shouldn’t come out,” he said. “I was definitely gay in 1987, but I wasn’t open about it. I was a captain, an officer, and if people would suspect, the level of my security clearance would have been lowered. I didn’t want to jeopardize my officer’s rank.”<br /><br /> Even-Zohar feared no such repercussions working here in San Francisco. As the campus division director of the S.F.-based Israel Center, a job he held for over five years, he frequently lectured about gay life in Israel. Now a professor of Hebrew at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Even-Zohar was the featured speaker recently at a lunchtime talk sponsored by Boalt Students for Israel at U.C. Berkeley. <br /><br /> Even though he suspected there were other gay soldiers in his unit, Even-Zohar didn’t dare ask. He finally received some confirmation, though, when he attended a gay pride parade in Tel Aviv after his release. <br /><br /> There, he bumped into someone from his army unit, and there was an immediate sense of recognition, he said — as if to say, “Oh, you were gay, too.”<br /><br /> But a lot has changed since then. Even-Zohar left the army in 1993, the very year that the IDF lifted a ban against openly gay soldiers serving. Since the ban was lifted, gay soldiers are encouraged to report any kind <br /><br /> of discrimination against them to their commanding officers, and the perpetrators are punished.<br /><br /> While Even-Zohar had little else to say about his own experience, he spent much of his talk discussing how the American military could learn from Israel’s example.<br /><br /> Even with its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, “The United States is the only democracy that discriminates against gays in the military,” he said.<br /><br /> Even-Zohar held up Denmark and the Netherlands as examples of how countries should be, as they were among the first to allow openly gay soldiers to serve.<br /><br /> Unlike Denmark, however, the United States is a very conservative country, he said, with religion playing an important role. The same goes for Israel.<br /><br /> “Israel has no separation of church and state,” he said. “[But] even with Orthodox rabbis who don’t approve of homosexuality at all in the government, still the government has lifted the ban against gays in the military.”<br /><br /> Noting how important the IDF is to the state of Israel — that it cannot afford to lose even one war — Even-Zohar said the army’s strength certainly hasn’t been compromised since allowing openly gay soldiers to serve.<br /><br /> Israel is much more progressive than the United States when it comes to discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military, he said. In the U.S. Army, if someone reports that someone in his unit might be gay, that soldier will be expelled, but first will most likely be humiliated and harassed.<br /><br /> By contrast, he said, if the same thing happens in Israel, the soldier will get an examination to determine whether he is considered more of a security risk, but that is all.<br /><br /> “Can he handle the pressure?” Even-Zohar joked. “Because we all know that gay people can’t handle pressure.”<br /><br /> Even-Zohar concluded by talking briefly about gay life in Israel. A World Pride festival, which will bring thousands of gays and lesbians to a major celebration of gay life in Jerusalem, was supposed to be held there last summer. <br /><br /> It was postponed until this August, said Even-Zohar, because the organizers “didn’t want a split screen on Israeli television with on one side, people being pulled out of their homes in Gaza and on the other side, naked boys dancing in the streets of Jerusalem.” </p> <p> </p>

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