In 1988, Israel passed a notorious piece of legislation legalizing Sodomy.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Israel should repeal this garbage. Rabbi Kahane was a Knesset member then. I wonder what he had to say about it.

Parliament Legalizes Homosexuality In Israel

By CAROL ROSENBERG   |   March 23, 1988 

JERUSALEM -- Homosexuality is now legal in the land of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Israel's parliament, the Knesset, Tuesday repealed an Israeli law dating back to British Mandate-era Palestine that had declared as illegal sex between consenting adults of the same gender.

The 120-member body legalized homosexuality in adopting a package of sex and sex-crime laws, which included harsher sentences for rapists, Knesset spokeswoman Sarah Yitzhaki said Wednesday.

Although no one had ever been prosecuted for homosexual activity in Israel's nearly 40-year history, the old law had provided a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Left-wing Knesset members had sought for several years to repeal the homosexuality law, but were opposed by religious groups. There were no members of Israel's small religious parties on the Knesset floor during the vote Tuesday.

Gay rights activists hailed the move, which ended a 10-year struggle to make homosexuality legal in Israel. The package of laws was sponsored by Shulamit Aloni of the Citizens Rights Movement, a small leftist political party which has three seats in the Knesset.

'This is not only the repealing of the previous law, it is the cancellation of prejudice and humiliation,' said Mark Tenenbaum, chairman of the Society for Protection of Individual Rights, a Tel Aviv-based gay rights group founded in 1977. It has 300 members.

A spokeswoman for Aloni said no Israeli had ever been prosecuted under the old law because Israel's legal adviser instructed judicial authorities several years ago not to use it.

Tenenbaum said although it had never been used, the law hung over the heads of Israel's homosexual population, which he estimated to be at least 10 percent of the nation, or 425,000 Israelis.

'Now things are clear, and instead of working against the law we can work much more about the social problems of gays in Israel,' he said. 'All the problems of gays with the society, with the family, the problem of young people, the problem of gays in the army.'

Although homosexuals may not be banned from the Israel Defense Forces because of their sexuality, Tenenbaum said gay soldiers carry a stigma and rarely admit their sexual identity.

Ultra-orthodox Judaism prohibits homosexuality, which according to the Bible was among the reasons God destroyed the towns of Sodom and Gomorrah. A town called Sodom exists in modern day Israel, in the Negev Desert, and archaeologists believe the site of the biblical city of Gomorrah is beneath the Dead Sea.

The new sex and sex-crime laws also provide a maximum 20-year jail sentence for rapists, an increase of six years, and ban journalists from reporting the names of alleged rape victims.

The legislation also nullified a law that declared sex between minors illegal. Instead, children under 16 may legally engage in sex if they are no more than two years apart and both agree.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

This was during the national unity government in which Peres and Shamir took turns being PM. Both parties were very large but could not form a coalition on their own. Any coalition would have had to include Labor and Likud to have a majority. The two parties together were a majority in the Knesset. In the last year of that coalition, they passed this garbage. I guess they realized it was their last chance since a normal government led by Likud would have had to rely on religious parties to keep the coalition intact. They also banned Rabbi Kahane that year. Likud won the election later in the year and the national government came to an end. Likud probably would not have been able to pass that garbage in the new government. The Rabin-Peres government might have tried but may have failed since they only were able to pass Oslo because of Shas and obviously Shas would have been against it. It could be that that coalition from 1984-1988 was the most dangerous. They could have done much more harm if Likud back then was like the Likud of Sharon. Even Labor back then didn't deal with the PLO.

[Yehudayaakov]

there is perception that it is a Jewish country that's why it's very disturbing but once you understand it's an illusion then you start to see the logic behind the system and understand they just want power  they have created a system and the only way to beat it is to destroy it

[Binyamin Yisrael]

It's such a Chillul Hashem that the British left a law against homosexuality and the Jews removed it. But they don't remove the British law that is used for administrative detention used against religious Jews for political reasons.

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Faggotry is so gay.