Women in the Israel Defense Forces



Women in the Israeli Defense Forces are female soldiers who serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Israel is the only country in the world with a mandatory military service requirement for women. Women have taken part in Israel’s military before and since the founding of the state in 1948, with women currently comprising 33% of all IDF soldiers and 51% of its officers, fulfilling various roles within the Ground, Navy and Air Forces. The 2000 Equality amendment to the Military Service law states that "The right of women to serve in any role in the IDF is equal to the right of men." As of now, 88% to 92% of all roles in the IDF are open to female candidates, while women can be found in 69% of all positions.

Formerly women conscripts served in the Women's Army Corps, commonly known by its Hebrew acronym, Chen. After a five-week period of basic training they served as clerks, drivers, welfare workers, nurses, radio operators, flight controllers, ordnance personnel, and course instructors.

Pre-state military service for women
Before the establishment of the state, women served in combat roles in the militias that would become the Israel Defense Forces. The rate of women who took part in combat organizations stood at 20%. At the years before the establishment of the IDF, military service for women existed in the lines of the Shomer and Hagana organizations. The Hagana stated in its law that its lines were open to: "Every Jewish male or female, who is prepared and trained to fulfill the obligation of national defense." Most served as medics, communications specialists, and weaponeers. During WWII approximately 4,000 females volunteered for service in the British assisting forces. One of them, Alice Hatzor-Hirsch, was about 16 when she joined the Hagana. In 1942, she joined the British army as a driver. "We were more connected than the others," she recalled years later. "A girl becoming a driver in the British army was considered the height of boldness at the time."

In Tel-Aviv of the 1940s, a battalion was established in which women filled positions in security, weapons transport, and manned anti-aircraft posts. During the winter of 1948, women joined the combat soldiers of the Palmach, who traveled from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with their weapons concealed in their clothes. The Palmach arm (thirty percent of which were females) trained nine female platoon commanders, and other female squad commanders.

Israeli War of Independence
On 26 May 1948, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion officially set up the IDF as the country's army. On 18 August 1948, mandatory conscription for single and married women without children (born between the years 1920-1930) began.

Women served in many positions including nurses, signal operators, drivers, clerks, cooks and more. The Women's Corps, under which all women served, was responsible for taking care of women soldiers' needs and for their training and integration into different IDF units. The Women's Corps also sent young women soldiers to be teachers in developing areas and immigrant neighborhoods of Israel.

State of Israel
Apart from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, when manpower shortages saw many Palmach and IDF women taking active part in land battles, women were historically barred from battle in the IDF, serving in a variety of technical and administrative support roles. Soon after the establishment of the IDF, the removal of all women from front-line positions was decreed. Decisive for this decision was the very real possibility of falling into enemy hands as prisoners of war. It was fair and equitable, it was argued, to demand from women equal sacrifice and risk; but the risk for women prisoners of rape and sexual molestation was infinitely greater than the same risk for men. A majority of women serving in the IDF then were secretaries. The rest served primarily as instructors, nurses, clerks and telephone operators. A few women flew transport missions in the 1950s and a few women were accepted into flight training in the 1970s, but did not complete the program before it was closed to women.

Yael Rom, the first female pilot trained by the Israeli Air Force, earned her wings in 1951. Hava Inbar, a lawyer, was appointed the judge of the military court in Haifa in September 1969, thus becoming the first female military judge in the world. "I do not know if I want to be a military judge my whole life," she said in an interview, "but I am glad that I was appointed; it proves that the IDF leaves almost all doors open for its female soldiers."

During the Yom Kippur War, due to a growing need for ground forces, women were needed in roles in the field. According to Rina Bar-Tal, chair of the Israel Women's Network, roles for women beyond technical and secretarial support only started to open up in the late 1970s and early '80s, because of manpower shortages. Since then, a few women have earned ranks higher than colonel. In 1986, Amira Dotan, then head of the Women's Corps, became the first female brigadier-general.

Gender equality


Civilian pilot and aeronautical engineer Alice Miller successfully petitioned the High Court of Justice to take the Israeli Air Force pilot training exams, after being rejected on grounds of gender. Though president Ezer Weizman, a former IAF commander, told Miller that she'd be better off staying home and darning socks, the court eventually ruled in 1996 that the IAF could not exclude qualified women from pilot training. Even though Miller would not pass the exams, the ruling was a watershed, opening doors for women in new IDF roles. Female legislators took advantage of the momentum to draft a bill allowing women to volunteer for any position, if they could qualify.

In 2000, the Equality amendment to the Military Service law stated that "The right of women to serve in any role in the IDF is equal to the right of men." The amendment that female lawmakers had drafted granted equal opportunities to women found physically and personally suitable for a job. The question of who and what was "suitable" was left to the discretion of military leaders on a case-by-case basis. Women did start to enter combat support and light combat roles in a few areas, including the Artillery Corps, infantry units and armored divisions. A few platoons named Carakal were formed for men and women to serve together in light infantry. By 2000 Carakal became a full-fledged battalion. Many women would also join the Border Police.

The first female jet fighter pilot, Roni Zuckerman, received her wings in 2001. By 2006, the first female pilots and navigators graduated from the IAF training course, and several hundred women entered combat units, primarily in support roles, like intelligence gatherers, instructors, social workers, medics and engineers. When the Second Lebanon War broke out, it was the first time since 1948 that women were in field operations alongside men. Airborne helicopter engineer Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Keren Tendler was the first female IDF combat soldier to be killed in action. In November 2007 the Air Force appointed its first woman deputy squadron commander.

On 23 June 2011, Orna Barbivai became the first female Major-General in the IDF upon her promotion to the role of commander of the Manpower Directorate. She is the second woman to serve on the General Staff.

In 2012, Capitan Merav Buchris became the first female ammunition Officer in the Air force, she started her military carrier as a Shoher at the Technical Academy in Haifa.

In 2013, in a first, a female IDF soldier was called up to the Torah during a service on a military base.

Service
Mandatory service for women in the IDF is 24 months, apart from roles specified in law which require a service length of 36 months. Women may be exempted from military service for reasons of religious conscience, marriage, pregnancy or motherhood. A woman may receive an exemption on religious grounds under the following conditions: Women who arrive in Israel at age 17 and over are generally exempt from army service, but may serve on a voluntary basis. Also, women (who are not fighters) are not generally called up for reserve duty if they are married or if they are beyond age 24.
 * 1) She has declared that for reasons of conscience, or a religious way of life, she is prevented from doing military service and has proven this to the satisfaction of the exemption committee.
 * 2) She keeps the laws of Kashrut at home and outside.
 * 3) She does not travel on Shabbat.

Combat roles
Clause 16A of the military service law requires that female combat soldiers serve 3 years of mandatory service, and continue in reserves service up to age 38, even if they become mothers. These are essentially identical to the terms of service for male combat soldiers. Each year, 1,500 female combat soldiers are drafted into the IDF. Women currently make up 3% of the IDF's combat soldiers.

A combat option for women is the Caracal Battalion, which is a highly operational force that is made up of 70 percent female soldiers. The unit undergoes training like any combat infantry. The IDF commando K9 unit, Oketz, also drafts females as elite combat soldiers.

Women's affairs advisor


The Women's Corps was dismantled in 2000, so that female soldiers for the first time would fall under the authority of individual units based on jobs and not on gender. They would wear the insignia of their units instead of the insignia of the Women's Corps. The position of Women's Affairs Advisor to the Chief of Staff was created in 2001. The female officer holding the position is in charge of ensuring more opportunities and a suitable environment for female soldiers, as well as better enhancing their skills. The mission of the advisor is described by the IDF as "empowering women, the IDF and Israeli society by promoting conditions that allow for the optimal use of the capabilities of women serving in the IDF; promoting equal opportunities for women during their military service; and assimilating women into military leadership positions."

Service exemptions
Sixty–five percent of Israeli girls serve in the army, 25 percent opt out on religious grounds, the remainder are exempted for physical, emotional or marital reasons. A law passed in 1978 made exemptions for women on religious grounds automatic upon the signing of a simple declaration attesting to the observance of orthodox religious practices. This legislation raised considerable controversy, and IDF officials feared that the exemption could be abused by any nonreligious woman who did not wish to serve and thus further exacerbate the already strained personnel resources of the IDF. Women exempted on religious grounds were legally obliged to fulfill a period of alternative service doing social or educational work assigned to them. In practice, however, women performed such service only on a voluntary basis.

2007 Segev Committee report


In 2007, then Head of Manpower Directorate, Aluf (Maj. Gen.) Elazar Stern, appointed a committee to define women's service in the IDF in the next decade, with the objective of increasing equal opportunities in women's service in the IDF. The committee, headed by Maj. Gen. (res.) Yehuda Segev, submitted its report to Stern in September 2007.

In September 2008, the 100-page report was presented to the IDF General Staff. Rav Aluf Gabi Ashkenazi, then-Chief of Staff, voiced support for the committee's vision: "The IDF, as a leading organization in Israeli society, designates the service of men and women to a fulfilling and respectful service based upon equal opportunities in the service of [the] IDF and the State of Israel."

The committee called for the annulment of the model that has been in place since the 1950s, under which a soldier's length of service and service options is largely determined by gender. "This is an archaic model that causes under-utilization of the resources ... of half of Israeli society, and closes off many opportunities, both during service and for integrating into society after service," the report said.

In 2007, 12 percent of all army jobs were completely closed to women. The report partially attributed it to the shorter length of service, as a barrier to putting women in the most demanding and important jobs. Hence postings are "to a large extent" determined by gender rather than a soldier's talents and abilities. Instead, the length of service "should depend solely on the job, rather than on one's gender."

The report advised making it harder for women to get an exemption from mandatory service and curbing the phenomenon of women falsely claiming exemptions on religious grounds. It also said the criteria for exemptions from service should be the same for both men and women. The panel recommended mandatory quotas for promoting women, with the goal of giving women a "significant presence" in the army's "senior decision-making ranks." In addition, it called for creating an effective, well-funded system to ensure proper working environments for both men and women, and for drafting a "gender code" that would lay down explicit rules for interaction between the sexes. "There should be no jobs or units categorically closed to either women or men," it said. "Service in all units, postings and missions would be joint, subject to the rules of appropriate integration."

The committee proposed opening all jobs to women aside from a handful to be determined by a special committee, whose decisions would require the approval of the Chief of Staff, the Defense Minister and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. It said the initial screening and assignment process should be unified so that men and women are part of the same system and receive their assignments based on the same criteria, including for acceptance into combat units. The panel proposed implementing this change gradually over the course of a decade.

Sexual harassment
Prior to the 1990s, there had existed a general consensus in the IDF that "sexual prowess goes hand in hand with military accomplishment." Even when social attitudes were changing in the 1980s, the IDF was still inclined towards tolerance and a senior army official warned of not blowing the "topic out of all proportion." In 1993, the Maariv reported that only 10% of around 1,000 reported cases of sexual harassment each year are investigated. Reports of sexual harassment against women in the Israeli army reached an average of one a day in 1999, an increase on the 280 complainants received in 1997. In 1998-99, 54 officers were expelled from the army on such charges, others faced demotion or prison. In one high-profile case, General Yitzchak Mordechai was charged with sexual assault and harassment. Another case involved the promotion of General Nir Galili after being accused of grooming a young female recruit for intimate relations. This issue has led the Israeli military being described as a "hothouse for exploitive sexual relationships" and a force who’s fighting culture is based on "rampant licentiousness." While the army has since tried to curb sexual harassment, rape remains a problem and other forms of misdemeanour are rife. In 2004, it was reported that 1 in 5 women soldiers suffer sexual harassment and complaints have been growing ever since.

Singing controversy
In September 2011, because of a religious ban on men hearing women sing, nine religiously-observant cadets in the IDF officer's course walked out of an evening seminar on the legacy of the 2008 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza when a band comprising two male and two female vocalists took the stage to sing. The commander of the school expelled four of them, after they said they would disobey orders again. The IDF agreed to re-examine regulations on this issue, given the growing number of religious soldiers in combat units. In October 2011, women soldiers were ordered to leave a post-Simhat Torah celebration on orders from IDF rabbis, and asked to dance in a separate area. In November 2011, nineteen reserve Major Generals sent a protest letter to Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and warned against harming the motivation of women to serve in the army and undermining "the fundamental values of Israeli society."