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Amidst the ongoing fierce war on the Gaza and Lebanon fronts, the internal situation in Israel has suddenly become extremely tense. A new and unprecedented socio-religious controversy has arisen within the country regarding the role of women soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Israel’s powerful and fundamentalist Jewish religious leaders (Orthodox Rabbis) have been furious over the government and army’s decision to allow women to enter the combat role in the Armored Corps (Battle Tanks). In view of this internal impasse and the threat of large-scale rebellion within the country, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the army have currently had to come on the backfoot.
Know why there is real uproar over the entry of women soldiers in tanks
Israel is one of the few countries in the world where military service is completely mandatory for men as well as women. In recent years the IDF began a pilot project to send women to the frontlines and train them as tank commanders. The army argued that women soldiers are fully capable of handling tanks to meet the shortage of manpower in this era of war. But Israel’s Orthodox Jewish community and their religious leaders have expressed strong objection to this. They say that the living of male and female soldiers together for weeks in the very narrow and confined space of tanks is completely against religious rules and Jewish modesty laws.
Open threat from fundamentalist religious leaders and surrender of Netanyahu’s army
The controversy escalated when Israel’s top rabbis issued a joint statement warning that if women were deployed in tanks, they would prevent youths from their community from joining the army. A large population of Orthodox youth in Israel serve in the army, and their rebellion at this critical juncture of the war could prove costly for Israel. The effect of this pressure was that the top leadership of the Israeli Army had to immediately call a high-level meeting. The Army has informed the court and the government that they are currently postponing the decision on permanent deployment of women in armored combat units, citing practical and social challenges.
Israel’s front against enemies may weaken due to internal divisions
Defense experts believe that this decision is no less than a big blow for Benjamin Netanyahu, because on one hand he wants to present himself as a modern and progressive country, while on the other hand he desperately needs the support of radical political parties to save his power. Israeli human rights organizations and women’s rights activists have strongly criticized this decision of the army and called it a violation of women’s rights. For Israel, which is surrounded by enemies, in this period of war, this internal social division and the retreat of the army can create a new challenge for the country’s security system in the coming days.
