Israelis banned from Madrid gay pride parade over flotilla incident

A delegation of gay residents of Tel Aviv has been banned from joining a gay pride march in Madrid because city authorities failed to condemn the recent Israel attack on the Gaza flotilla, the UK newspaper ‘The Guardian’ reports. "After what has happened, and as human rights campaigners, it seemed barbaric to us to have them taking part," the paper quotes Antonio Poveda of the Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals in Spain as saying.

The Tel Aviv group have reacted angrily to the decision, claiming that the Madrid activists were getting their priorities wrong by mixing the flotilla incidents with gay pride. "I cannot recall anyone asking the Tel Aviv city hall to either support or condemn in this case. That is not their job. I also don't recall Madrid's gay organizations condemning any of the Palestinian terrorist attacks on cafés or buses," Eytan Schwartz, a spokesman for Tel Aviv city, told the newspaper ‘El Mundo’.

Schwartz said that Tel Aviv had also extended an invitation to Madrid to send a delegation of gay activists to the city. Among other things, Tel Aviv had planned to take the Spanish organizers of the march to Gaza so they could witness a place "that is controlled by the fundamentalists of Hamas, who do not respect any human rights and believe that homosexuals should be killed," Schwartz said.