Featured Post
The refusal to share space with a woman exposes a widening clash over religion, equality and the Israel we want to be
Let’s get this straight: The army jailed a handful of male soldiers for refusing to sit in an armored personnel carrier with a female paramedic. The soldiers were part of a regular combat unit, not an ultra-Orthodox one, and therefore required to obey the rules under which women serve alongside men. Bezalel Smotrich, a government minister, publicly condemned the army’s move, even though the soldiers’ refusal had supposedly compromised their mission.
The woman, unnamed in the article, was not asked how she felt about the soldiers’ rude boycott.
She was not there to sing, and the men were not required to touch her. There would be no orgy in the APC because a woman sat on one of its benches. She was there because she possessed special training. Her seat was not a perk. She was not there because she had breasts or a vagina, but because she, like the men, had a role to play in whatever action was planned.
