Role of Women in Israel's Military
Israel is the only country in the world to have compulsory military service for women. Many often view this required service as a progressive system that places women on an equal footing with men. However, a closer examination reveals that Israel is just as terrified as every other nation regarding the participation of women in military combat. In fact, Israel's requirement for mandatory participation in a service that discriminates against women, may be just as draconian, if not more so, than discriminating against voluntary participants. This paper explores what function women really play in the Israeli military and how and why their limited role is slowly changing for the better.
The Defense Service Law of 1959 requires all citizens and permanent residents of the State of Israel to perform military service. This includes all women between the ages of 18 and 26, who are physically fit, unmarried, have not borne children, and have not objected on religious grounds or grounds of conscience. Women currently perform compulsory military service in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) for a period of one year and nine months. In contrast males are required to serve for three years.
The disparity in service length requirements is the first clue that the Israel military views the roles of men and women in the military far differently.
Female soldiers fought alongside male colleagues in Israel's War of Liberation, which ended in 1948, but women have not since seen combat because of perceived problems during this war with claims that men protected the women members of their unit instead of carrying out the unit's mission. 1991.)
Women were pulled from the frontlines after only a few weeks of participating in the 1948 war when a group of them was ambushed and their bodies desecrated by the enemy.
According to some,...
Placing women in combat is believed by many to violate the Jewish concept of womanhood and women's status as mothers. Further, certain Israelis do not seem prepared to have women suffer the same consequences of war as men do. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan has stated that during Israel's War of Liberation, "we had a constant fear of what the Arabs would do to our women if they captured them." The men, commented Dayan, "could not stand the psychological stress" of watching women being killed and captured and "felt that [having women in combat units] knocked down their combat effectiveness."
In 1995, the Israeli Supreme Court ruling that struck down the "men-only" rule for combat units. However, integration of women into combat-support platoons has been slow and the legislation does not appear to be taken as seriously as it should be. IDF statistics reveal that eighty-four percent of female soldiers still serve in administrative roles with only one percent training for combat roles, and eighty-two percent of female soldiers have had no weapons training. Israeli army doctors assessing gender limitations have recommend women not serve in front-line infantry positions, artillery units or tank crews, citing lesser body strength and endurance than men.
During testimony before the U.S. Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, an Israeli warfare expert commented:
"Contrary to the myth, we have no women in combat [in Israel]. "On the contrary," he said, "the whole point of having women in the Israeli Defense Force is to free men for combat." Women in the IDF are actually part of a separate corps, and any weapons training they receive is "entirely symbolic." Women…
