Far-right extremists vow to disrupt Jerusalem Pride Parade

The leader of an extremist Jewish group says his organization plans to disrupt this week’s Jerusalem Pride Parade in order to fight what he calls “LGBT terrorism.”

Bentzi Gopstein says his Lehava organization, a racist group that has held violent protests outside interfaith weddings and has faced multiple police investigations over harassment and other crimes, received a police permit to stage a protest near the annual parade on Thursday and would use loudspeakers to disrupt the marchers who “are bringing disaster to Israel.”

“The purpose of the march is to dissolve the values ​​of the Jewish family and to turn Jerusalem and all of Israel into Sodom,” Gopstein said in a statement.

Gopstein is a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, which united with the Jewish Home and National Union ahead of April’s elections to form the Union of Right-Wing Parties. The merger was orchestrated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to salvage votes for the right-wing bloc, which he said would have been wasted had the hardline parties run on their own and not crossed the electoral threshold.