The Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern I
The Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern IAFP/Mehr News/File

Only seven percent of respondents think a woman can deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, according to a poll carried out for the Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO).

The survey was conducted as part of WIZO’s campaign to encourage the participation of women in politics, but the results were negative for a woman to deal with Iran as long as it strives to build a nuclear weapon.

However, the poll showed that women as political leaders have a positive influence on the public, although less so in the areas of economics and defense.

The results imply that the public would not trust Labor leader Knesset Member Shelly Yechimovich or Tzipi Livni, running under a new party bearing her own name, to head the defense or finance ministries.

Livni has been touted by Israel’s anti-Netanyahu media to become the Foreign Minister in the next government, which by all accounts will be headed by the current Prime Minister. She has discounted the reports of her wanting the post, which she held during the Olmert administration.

Livni was responsible for negotiating the UN ceasefire agreement Resolution 1701 with Hizbullah after the 2006 Second Lebanon War, breached almost immediately by the terrorist organization which had signed that it would cease to bring arms into Lebanon and now has at least ten times as many rockets as it had at the end of the war. She was also responsible for the ceasefire that stopped the 2008 Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign in Gaza.

A woman for president of Israel is a possibility in 10 years, according to 60 percent of the respondents.

"The survey's findings depict a dismal picture about the public's perception, which is partly affected by the political reality, which can live in peace with the idea of limited representation of women in all governing institutions and decision-making processes that set government policy,” said WIZO Israel chairwoman Gila Oshrat.

“Despite the improvement in the status of women in the past decade, we must act to promote full equality in every walk of life, and the government should implement this,” she added. “The struggle for gender equality is a common social and national challenge."