The feminist storm troopers
The battle for equal rights is being won, but do women really want the right to perpetrate war crimes or to maintain the occupation?
Gideon Levy - Jul 01, 2018 - Haaretz.com
▻https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-the-feminist-storm-troopers-1.6222588
Merav Michaeli admires MJ Hegar. She even says she would vote for her – although, as far as is known, the Israeli Knesset member has no voting rights in Texas, where Hegar is vying for a Congress seat. Hegar was a helicopter pilot who served in Afghanistan until her chopper was shot down during her third tour. She’s since been on a crusade, aimed at opening combat roles in the U.S. Army up to women without discrimination.
Michaeli, the queen of Israeli feminists and a representative of the center-left, wants to see more American female helicopter pilots in Afghanistan and Yemen – who can continue bombing no matter what, who and how much is on the receiving end. She also wants more female pilots in Israel to take part in airstrikes against Gaza, along with female tank combatants who can shell whatever the female helicopter pilots leave standing.
The Labor Party meat grinder, which distorts the moral image of anyone elected to its list, alongside blind and rapacious feminism, have caused even Michaeli – one of the most impressive and committed members of the Knesset – to temporarily lose her moral compass. Just give her more female bombers. Let them bomb and shell in Afghanistan and Gaza, only let them be women.
Four female soldiers who completed a tank commanders’ course last week induced drooling militaristic pride among numerous men and women in Israel: the feminist in the tank rules! Now there are female combatants in the air, on land and at sea, and the Israel Hayom and Yedioth Ahronoth dailies could not let the opportunity pass without spouting headlines such as “Queens of the skies” and “Armor piercing.”
Corp. Keren Beit-On will complete her Snapir course this week and join a unit of naval speedboats patrolling the Gaza coast. On a good day, she might participate in the shooting of desperate Palestinian fishermen who exceeded the boundaries of their cages for their livelihoods, or at least spray them with water cannon until, helpless, they fall off their flimsy and pathetic surfboards into the water. This time, it won’t be at the hands of a macho male combatant, but one of the first female graduates of the feminist Snapir course. Beit-On, like Hegar the helicopter pilot, will fulfill the ideal of gender equality, without any discrimination. In the air, on land and at sea.
The just and triumphant feminist train is racing ahead and no one stops to ask: Sorry, but equality in what? In oppression? In tyranny over another people? Female equality in abuse? Gender equality in perpetrating war crimes?
A course instructor of the Snapir ("Fin") Unit, a mixed male and female combat unit, practicing in inflatable rubber boats in the Haifa Bay.IDF Spokesperson’s UnitIs this what you want? Is this what you deserve? Is this what we deserve? After this goal is achieved, the feminists will be able to advance toward their next objective: gender equality in organized crime. That’s another arena where male dominion must be ended – to the barricades, until Rinat Abergil controls the family business equally with her husband Meir!
Of course, the IDF should not be compared to crime families in order to understand the depth of the darkness. In order to achieve a goal that itself is absolutely correct – namely, gender equality in society – men and women are prepared to abandon any other moral value. It is true that the entrance to many halls of power still runs through service in combat units, though happily this is diminishing. But nothing could justify turning this service – a major part of which is geared toward perpetuating the occupation and the settlements – into a desired objective for women seeking equality.
No Border Policewoman, armed from head to toe while evacuating a family in Silwan, raiding a house in Nablus in the middle of the night while brutally waking up female household members, or lording it over Palestinian passersby in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City in order to protect a handful of settlers, will add an iota of dignity to the struggle for gender equality. It will only bring shame by the fact that women are also participating in these actions.
Women, you should be proud that you don’t have an equal role in maintaining the occupation. Be proud that you don’t share equally in bombing kite warehouses in Gaza, and that there isn’t yet gender equality in the disgraceful nightly arrest raids in the West Bank. There are more than enough male occupation-serving storm troopers doing this work.
The road to equality, just and absolute, should be pursued using other, more moral, paths.
