Israeli Women in Fatigues

NRO ^ | January 11, 2005 | Mackubin Thomas Owens

[neverdem]

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January 11, 2005, 7:30 a.m.

Israeli Women in Fatigues
Learning from experience.

There's nobody quite like Elaine Donnelly. For many years, she has led the fight to resist the political correctness that constantly threatens to engulf the uniformed military and destroy its integrity. In her NRO piece of Jan 7, "The Army's Gender War," she improved on my earlier NR article on the same topic: "GI Janes, By Stealth." How could she not? Although I have been writing on the topic of women in combat for at least a decade, it was her research that formed the foundation of that piece.

It turns out that my article generated a large number of e-mails. Most were positive, but a couple of writers not so favorably disposed to my argument suggested that the Israeli experience disproved my contention that women in combat undermine unit cohesion and thereby generate Clausewitzian friction. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In fact, the Israeli experience, contrary to the assertions of my correspondents, constitutes the closest thing we have to a laboratory experiment for testing the claims of those who would expand the role of women as the Army is trying to do.

Contrary to common contention, Israel does not currently allow women in combat — they've been banned since 1948. But they have a history of integrated fighting there that we can learn from.

During the period of the British Mandate for Palestine, Palestinian Jews formed an elite, semi-clandestine, volunteer youth organization called Palmach. During Israel's War of Independence, Palmach served as the core of Haganah, the forerunner of the Israel Defense Force (IDF).

The ideology of Palmach was egalitarian socialism, and according to the Israeli military historian Marin Van Creveld, the organization "was sexually integrated to an extent rarely attained by any armed force before or since." Van Creveld writes that before Israeli independence, Palmach women accompanied men on missions, especially "undercover missions that involved obtaining intelligence, transmitting messages, smuggling arms, and the like."

Despite Palmach's ideological commitment to radical equality for women, the practical experience of the 1948 war — which involved coordinated, combined arms-offensive actions — convinced the leaders of Israel and the IDF that the dangers of women in combat outweighed the benefits — including commitment to an abstract concept of equality between the sexes. For one thing, according to the late Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, women reduced the combat effectiveness of Haganah units because men took steps to protect them out of "fear of what the Arabs would do to [the] women if they captured them."

The Israeli case demonstrates that, at least in the past, when confronted by great danger, reasonable people can sacrifice ideology to the dictates of nature. In other words, nature trumps attempts at human engineering.

— Mackubin Thomas Owens is an associate dean of academics and professor of national-security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. He led a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam in 1968-69.

 

	http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens200501110730.asp

[StoneColdGOP]

I'll just betcha, at least 50 of those Freepers and Lurkers clicked away all disappointed they didn't get to see any sexy IDF Soldierettes.

Yes...

[Hildy]

When Israeli children turn 16 they go to a summer camp called GADNA (please correct spelling if it is wrong). This where they get military training. Boys and Girls train alongside each other. I know this because I went on an educational tour of Israel and we spent two weeks in a Gadna Camp. Believe me, my little JAP ass from Long Island did not like getting up at 5am, running a couple of miles with a rifle slung over mys shoulder. But I do have the picture to prove it!

[IAF ThunderPilot]

"When Israeli children turn 16 they go to a summer camp called GADNA..."

A little correction:
"When Israeli children turn 16 they CAN go to a summer camp called GADNA..."
This is not a must. Personaly, I never been there.
Its just an option as many other summer camps.

[Joe 6-pack]

I've seen enough. I surrender.

- J6P

[Hildy]

Didn't know that, was it ever mandatory? It was the 1970's when I was there.

[logic]

Actually, I think the odds were even worse than that. I don't know any actual numbers but my guess would be that there were about 7 Arab armies converging on Israel. Each army was between 100,000 and 300,000 trained & armed men. They attacked the newly born nation that had around 30,000 Jewish adults, (important because the Arabs were there to destroy the jews so no arab who lived in Israel would help the jews, infact they almost all left so they wouldn't get hit in crossfire creating the homeless Palestinian refugees) hardly any trained fighters (maybe 10% of the men would be about 1,500) and they had hardly any weaponry since it was all outlawed by the then brittish occupiers.

I think the actual numbers are in a book I have at home so I can get them if anyone wants facts instead of guesses.... Hardly needed when the purpouse of the thread is too see beautiful women in fatigues......

[adaven]

WOMEN OF THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES

[IAF ThunderPilot]

Only the service in the IDF is a must, when the Israelis are 18 years old (except some Haredim with religion problems).
In the age of 17 every Israeli gets the first order to the IDF's recruiting office. There they are passing medical checks to put a military profile, interviews, psychotechnical tests and other things.

After that, according to the tests results and medical checks and interviews, they get options to choose a duty that they would prefer to serve at. Some get their wishes, while others dont (depends of course on their physichal and technical abilities).

Those who can serve at combat and elite forces try to pass many other tests so the IDF will decide where to mobilize them.
Others dont know where they are going to serve until they get the mobilization order in the age of 18.

Only when they start their service on the day the mobilization order says, their first trainings start.

Hope I cleared something.

[ken5050]

A little personal anecdote you all might enjoy..at the time of the Yom Kippur war, I was living with my then girlfriend in the NY suburbs. I'd been back home for about 5 months, after 4 years overseas..mostly in Spain. I'd visited Israel 4 times in that period, made some friends in the IDF, and had visited some of the battlesites, so I had a good sense of the capabilities of the IDF. Most of our friends felt the Israelis could handle the situation. I had a more realistic point of view, and after four years in the Marines, probably a better sense of what the Israelis faced, and also the knowledge that things often go wrong in battle.

At the time the Yom Kippur war started, information, without satellites, 24 hour news channels, and cell phones, was a totally different animal than now,,( looking back, it seems almost prehistoric).. Anyways, the first night of the war, I remember we're in bed, maybe 1 am or so, watching the news, think it was Huntley/Brinkley.. and the phone rings. It's for my girlfriend, the UJA phoning for an emergency fundraising appeal. We of course made a pledge. Next morning..5 am, I'm up at my usual time..and take the dogs for a walk. Going out the door, I see tucked in our mail slot an envelope. I'm curious...I had picked up the mail last night, and the paper never came that early in the morning..what was it?..An envelope from the UJA/Federation, confirming our pledge, with an s.a.s.e asking us to send it in immediately, as it was urgently needed, and to consider adding more if we could.

I remember grinning as I went back inside to show my girlfriend. The logistics of the task were so impressive. It took less than 4 hours to solicit and record our pledge, prepare the envelope, and the personally addressed appeal, and in the middle of the night, have it in our mailbox. I told her that if a bunch of little old Jewish ladies ( metaphorically speaking, or course) could pull this off...( and again, imagine it happening tens of thousands of times more in the same night) then the Arabs didn't have a chance..logistics is perhaps the major component of any military victory, after the initial contact, and the Arabs were not in the same league..

[Squantos]

PING !

[president2016]

[president2016]

[Hildy]

You did, thank you very much!

[ZULU]

WOW!!!

They can capture me ANYTIME!!!

[ZULU]

There's something about beautiful women with guns that really turns me on.

I like the two on the left.

[Professional Engineer]

The third photo is my long time favorite! ;-)

[IAF ThunderPilot]

;)

[president2016]

the one on the bottom left, my favorite

[ZULU]

Yeah. She's the foxiest of the two.

[wallcrawlr]

Sheesh you guys...get a room.