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Photo: Yair Sagi
'We must seat women leaders alongside the generals, just like in America, Norway, Italy and France'
Photo: Yair Sagi
Photo: David Vinokur
Merav Betito
Photo: David Vinokur

Generals, open the door to women

Op-ed: Military games are becoming increasingly dangerous. Women are needed to change the security discourse, offer a different perspective.

The events at the Jenin refugee camp poured straight into the Israeli viewer's home through the camera connected to the helmet of one of the fighters. Occasionally it seemed like a Hollywood film of the genre that pushes the viewers to actually identify with the bad guys, who in this case have no trouble firing a barrage of gunshots over the heads of their terrified family members.

 

 

The reflex which takes over me at the sight of our soldiers encircling a house in the second watch of the night, armed from head to toe, is of a mother concerned about her son the combat soldier: I am thrilled that my child is not standing in this hell, glad that he is not directing his gun at the face of a woman as old as his grandmother, relieved that he is safe in a different base and doesn't have to capture Hamza Abu al-Hija, a 22-year-old Hamas activist who has turned into a murderous monster and is now using his siblings as a human shield.

 

The military people, who know how to terminate dangers and intercept them before they show up at our peaceful doorsteps, have one common denominator: They are all men. The manner of military thinking is synonymous with homogenous solutions which do not make it possible to address the biggest existential problem the Israeli has been dealing with in the state's 66 years.

 

The military man is convinced that one of our existential problems is capturing wanted terrorists, because there is no one around him to instill the insight that the problem is completely different: Abu al-Hija is duplicating himself as we speak and becoming a model for children and young people in the refugee camps. His father, Jamal Abu al-Hija, was one of Hamas' symbols in the West Bank, and he has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002 on charges of planning several suicide bombings. Even before he was arrested, the father lost his eye and hand in a demolition charge explosion. If this is what the second generation of wanted Hamas terrorists looks like, imagine what the third and fourth generations will look like.

 

The military games are becoming increasingly dangerous, but no one dares raise his voice and announce that the games are over and that it's time to talk like adults. The growing use of army forces within a civil population only illustrates the chaotic confusion of Israel's security leadership, which is insisting on a military solution and wondering why "their" textbooks are filled with incitement against the Zionist enemy.

 

Women important in preventing violent conflicts

The State of Israel is not the only one stuck in the frustrating loop of deepening unsuccessful solutions. The UN Security Council paid attention to that, and in October 2000 it adopted Resolution 1325, which recognizes the importance of women's role in preventing violent conflicts. This resolution calls on UN member states to incorporate women in all decision making processes, especially those dealing with issues of security and peace.

 

Following this historical resolution, dozens of countries around the world developed an action plan with the aim of implementing it. The State of Israel was the first among UN members to include components from the resolution's principles in the Equal Rights for Women Law, but the Israeli implementation program has only been launched these days.

 

The children on the Palestinian side are growing up into an apocalyptic reality encouraging use of weapons and pushing the weak into despair and destruction.

They will be exposed to radical education and will continue admiring the fanatics and extremists as long as we keep pointing our weapons at them.

 

Therefore, we must seat women leaders alongside the generals, just like in America, Norway, Italy and France. The heavy military door must open to women, if only just a crack. No gentleman has died from opening the door to a lady.

 


פרסום ראשון: 03.29.14, 08:40
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