A conference on radical-left feminism and pacifism in the Israel Defense Forces may have been more than talk: Nationalist groups may be given more of a say as a result.
The conference was held on Wednesday at Bar Ilan University’s Begin-Saadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies, entitled, “Women and Israeli National Security.”
The event featured three two-hour panel discussions, most of which centered around arguments in favor of and against radical-left feminism. However, just as 1,000 words are worth one picture, six hours of talk can lead to one action that could change the picture.
Former MK Amira Dotan, who was long the highest-ranking female officer in IDF history and headed the Women’s Corps in the IDF for five years, defended herself and her fellow female high-achievers from various types of criticism. She then said, “The message I hear here is that the Yohalan – the office of the Advisor to the IDF Chief of Staff on Women's Issues - is overly inundated by researchers and writers from the far-left side of the spectrum, and I think that should be changed.”
She said she would immediately phone Brig.-Gen. Gila Kalifi, who heads Yohalan, and ask her to change this. Israel National News has learned that by Thursday morning, Dotan was already at work on fulfilling her pledge.
She also called upon the nationalist groups to provide research and researchers for Yohalan to draw upon.
Dotan, who is the Director of the Academic Institute for the Settlement of Disputes in the College of Mangement, was widely praised by the former residents of Gush Katif for her work on their behalf in the previous Knesset.
Anti-Israel Feminism
Prevalent in the background throughout the conference was the accusation that radical feminism is often aligned with anti-Israel elements, and that under the guise of feminism, leftists of the most pacifist, anti-Zionist nature are allowed to have a strong influence in the army and universities such as Bar Ilan.
Among the speakers were Dr. Udi Lebel of Sapir Academic College and Ariel University Center, whose talk was entitled, "Caution: People Die in the Army – Mothers as Forgers of Security: Cultural, Societal and Strategic Implications.” He was followed by Dr. Mordechai Keidar, of the BESA Center, who spoke on “The Role of Women in the Eyes of the Arab World.”
“Enemies understand this phenomenon of women taking over [the army] as a weakness on our part,” Keidar said. “The Israeli nation is thus viewed by Arabs as spineless and hysterical, pushing peace further away because the Arabs are encouraged to think that they will soon be able to wipe us out.”
The second session was highlighted by a presentation by Col. (res.) Raz Sagi on the physical difficulties women face in combat duty and how this in turn weakens the army, and a rebuttal by Dr. Orna Sasson-Levy of Bar Ilan University.
Sagi spoke of the much higher rate of injuries such as stress fractures and sick days among female soldiers than among males; impediments to building a cohesive unit when women are present; the lowering of physical standards in the army; and more. “The objective of an army is simply to produce violence,” Sagi said, “and women are just not as good at doing that as men are.”
Prof. Sasson-Levy, who has publicly encouraged women to refuse to serve in the army at all, responded, “It appears that the main points of Sagi’s arguments center around men’s foibles in being attracted to the opposite sex, leading to the question: Do women have to pay the price for men’s problems?”
She said that she does not see women combat soldiers as her ideal, but “there must still be equality between the genders in all other areas of the army.”
One member of the audience noted, “It appears that Sagi was talking about what we as citizens can give the army, while Sasson-Levy is talking about what the army can give women.”
In the final session, Attorney Dafna Netanyahu, sister-in-law of the Prime Minister, noted again that many of the researchers and writers for Yohalan are of the most anti-Israel, radical-left variety. Citing many direct quotations to prove her point, she said that they are signed on many anti-Israel and anti-IDF petitions, and view the IDF entirely through feminist glasses “as if there were no existential threats facing Israel.”