Police mobilize
for possible violence during Jerusalem pride march

Thousands of police deployed across Jerusalem on Thursday to head off any violence at a gay pride march that has sparked riots by ultra-Orthodox Jews and denunciations by Muslim and Christian leaders.

The annual gay rally highlights the deep divide between the city's secular and religious communities, with marchers demanding to exercise their civil rights and opponents claiming the march debases the holy city. Opposition to the march has generated violence in the past, and the 7,000 police far outnumbered the several hundred marchers who had gathered at the rallying point shortly before the parade began.

Several hundred ultra-Orthdox protesters held a counterdemonstration in another part of Jerusalem ahead of the march, bringing traffic to a standstill. Trash bins were set afire, and smoke and the stench of burning garbage wafted through the air.

Protest leaders chanted psalms through loudspeakers, and marchers waved banners saying ''Shame'' and ''Israeli Supreme Court: Destroying the Holy City.''

Opponents appealed to the Israeli supreme court to ban the march, but the justices ruled Wednesday night that it could go ahead.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews have rioted repeatedly over the past week, burning tires, assaulting policemen, and damaging police cars.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 22 policemen were injured and 130 people arrested in the run-up to the parade, including a 32-year-old ultra-Orthodox man caught Thursday carrying a homemade explosive device. Under questioning the man said he had planned to plant the explosive along the parade route, Rosenfeld said.

At the 2005 march an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed three marchers. Last year the street parade was canceled because of safety concerns; instead, gays celebrated at a sports stadium on the edge of the city.

The gay pride event routinely brings together the religious leaders of Jerusalem in a consensus of condemnation.

On Thursday, Sheik Mohammed Hussein, mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, denounced the march and criticized the government for permitting it.

''Such a march contradicts all religions and morals and the natural human way of being, '' he said.

Seven thousand police were mobilized in expectation of 5,000 marchers, Rosenfeld said. The parade route has been limited to 500 meters past the landmark King David hotel to a nearby park, where a rally will be held.

Many main streets in the downtown area were closed hours before the march, and public transportation has been routed away from the city center. A fleet of ambulances was standing by in anticipation of possible violence.

Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service said in a statement it was preparing an ''unprecedented operation,'' readying 200 medics, 45 ambulances, 11 mobile intensive care units, and a field command center. Additional medics and ambulances will be on standby, the statement said.

''Perhaps we should thank the ultra-Orthodox community for giving us what we want, which is visibility that will lead to a kind of acceptance of our place in this city,'' said Jerry Levinson, a gay activist, before the rally began.

He estimated that 60,000 gays lived in metropolitan Jerusalem.

Jerusalem's gay pride parade has in the past been a relatively modest affair, with none of the flamboyant costumes or nudity common at similar events elsewhere in the world, or even in the nearby Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

The annual gay pride march in Tel Aviv usually proceeds without incident. (Ben Hubbard, AP)