
Women's IDF service in some positions is essential to the security of the State of Israel. Heroines they were, and, as it seems now, will be required to be heroines once again in the "obligatory war" enveloping the State of Israel with all the threats surrounding us.
At the same time, a foreign spirit and a commandment of "Equality" that cancels the difference between genders in the IDF, as well as the Joint Service Order, which replaced the IDF's Proper Integration Order delivered a blow to the IDF's prime directive: to defend the State of Israel and to win in battle. The Joint Service Order precipitates harm to women soldier's health, their femininity and natural modesty, harm to the male soldier's modesty and, as stated, damage to Israel's security.
There are excellent women soldiers, including in exceptional places. In general, it is not the role of women to attack, capture targets, or kill, nor to pursue infiltrators and terrorists on the Jordan border, all without proper conditions of modesty. Good female soldiers exist in many other roles.
Those who push the IDF to erase gender identity and raise the value of "equality" above all others, harm the IDF's operational capabilities, whose main task is to defend the State of Israel and win in battle. Creating shared living quarters and even bathrooms undermines Jewish modesty, the tradition of Israel, and the unity of the IDF and Israeli society.
Some of the processes in the IDF were carried out without a public-moral debate, without proper staff work, or even in violation of the IDF's own orders, such as the Officers' School commander who is supposed to be the role model's role model for all his cadets, yet even allowed himself to violate the Proper Integration Order and mix male cadets and female cadets in the officers' course in departmental frameworks and not in gender-separate units as determined in the order.
The commander of the Navy decided that all enlistments would be mixed and all service in ships and living quarters would be mixed and make it difficult to accomidate those whose faith and lifestyle seek to maintain modesty between the sexes, between human beings. Women were integrated in many units without taking care of their living conditions. Proper modesty in living quarters that were once "separate" by order have become gender-mixed shared facilities, in training and in operational missions that require physical contact and that stimulate sexual tension - instead of operational tension - between the genders.
Why in civilian life is it clear that the aggressive soccer teams are single-sex teams and so are the bathrooms in the mixed swimming pools? Because in the public sphere there are boundaries in modesty between the sexes. This modesty is part of the sanctity of the camp of Israel, which also resulted in victory against our enemies, in matter and in spirit.
Some of the processes were done in the name of the claim of an IDF manpower shortage, while the same players inconsistently led the populist equality law that shortened boy's service, a law that I opposed and will work to correct.
The weakening of its position and the inability of the military Rabbinate to participate in staff discussions, as prompted by the former head of the Personnel Directorate and other senior officers, harmed many male and female soldiers and officers who found it difficult to maintain their modesty and religious or traditional ways of life in the IDF. The military rabbinate was created for this reason, in order to be involved in staff work, and these decisions have operational, religious, and social significance.
To the best of my knowledge, and so did the Chief of Staff brief the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the Chief of Staff delegated finding a solution to the complex issues in this matter to the Head of Manpower, his deputies, and the IDF Chief Rabbi - and that is as it should be.
To the best of my understanding, this was not the case, and senior officers in the vicinity of the Chief of Staff have managed and continue to manage a policy that changes the spirit of the IDF and Israeli society.
It is unthinkable that the IDF, which is a leading factor in Israeli society, will find itself leading in controversial values, that many of its worthy servants see as moral and ethical putrefaction.
It is right that joint service in the IDF be implemented according to the principles of the Proper Integration Order. In order to ensure Israel's security and our unity, we will uphold the rules that have guided the IDF and our Jewish values and we will protect the IDF, its unity and cohesion, as the Israel Defense Forces.
With great appreciation to the Chief of Staff and the IDF commanders, I am convinced that a proper discussion will be held and conclusions and decisions will be produced that will restore the IDF's natural values and find the right combination for joint service in the Israel Defense Forces.