Members of Benjamin Netanyahu's prospective government are upping the rhetoric against the integration of women into combat units in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
MK Simcha Rotman of the ultra-conservative Religious Zionist party was the latest lawmaker to voice his opposition to female soldiers filling combat roles, saying their service “does not serve operational needs.”
“We are fooling ourselves. Equality in [military] service causes damage and lowers combat fitness standards,” he said during an Israel Democracy Institute conference. “The considerations are everything but operational needs.”
Rotman also decried mixed-gender combat units, saying “mixing women fighters harms the IDF, the women and the men who serve there.”
The leader of Rotman’s party Bezalel Smotrich also made similar remarks in 2019, claiming that men and women serving together “harms the operational efficiency of the IDF, its competence and its ability to fulfill its tasks.”
Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who was also prime minister back then, said in response he was proud of female soldiers and that “women's service in the IDF does not harm Israel's security, it contributes to Israel's security.
Avi Maoz, the head of the far-right homophobic Noam party that signed a coalition agreement with Netanyahu’s Likud party on Sunday, has also spoken out in the past against women serving in the military, saying “the greatest contribution to the country is for the women to marry, God willing, and raise a healthy family” and added that women should consider alternative voluntary national service instead.
Meanwhile, talks to form Israel’s next government are ongoing as the Religious Zionist party and Likud announced Tuesday morning they have made major progress toward the signing of a coalition agreement.