Women In The Israel Defense Force

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is just like any other country with there own military that includes a naval, air force, and army force. Israel is the only country in the world that draft women at the age of eighteen. Men serve for a term of three years where women are only required to serve for 21 months. Even immigrants are allowed to join IDF. Even though women are drafted they may not have to complete their services or even start depending on their age, personal status, and religion. As of 1991 while 6% of the American military were women, while a massive 40% of IDF were composed of women. The one big difference is Israel women are taught everything, for example how to operate a tank or prepare for biological attack, except they are not allowed to participate in actual combat. They are taught to train the men to prepare for combat. Women can obtain any level in the military. One female Sergeant even said she had no problem working with other men, “They even forget that I’m a girl, and just see me as one of the guys”. In the odds of 3.5 million Jews surrounded by over a 100 million hostiles, from a 50+ year war, most women are not intimidated by being drafted. In fact it’s just the opposite. There is no question of “should I or shouldn’t I”, to them this is their country and a way of life. Even Nativa Garuda, was one of the first females in IDF, who served in the front line for 7 months explains why women do not see combat. Her generation did see combat, and the gruesome things that happened to the women in particular were so horrific that most women threatened committing suicide before becoming a POW. Tel Aviv’s government witnessed the way women were mutilated, raped, and tortured to death, therefore stating from then on no women would see combat from then on. Since then there are some women who agree and some who disagree with seeing combat. Overall the amazing aspect is how these women participate to protect their country, and the men see and respect them for it as well.

IDF-
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/idf.htm

Protecting Palestine: At What Cost?

Women have gone from being life givers to life takers. Counterterrorism intelligence experts have gathered most of their information from failed female suicide bomber interviews. Farhana Ali (counterterrorism expert from Rand Corporation) explains how women have a maternal instinct to protect their “society, their children, or their community”. A good example is Wafa Idris, who was a 28 year old divorcee. On January 31, 2002 Wafa Idris detonated a bomb that killed her and an 81 year old man, and injured over 100 others. No one is sure if she meant to plant the bomb, or if she intentionally sacrificed herself for the Palestinian fight against the state of Israel. The one thing Palestinian’s knew was she was the first Palestinian female suicide bomber, and she opened the floodgates of a feminism movement. Wafa had volunteered at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Ramallah. She had seen “terrible things… the body parts, the children who were shot, the pregnant women who lost their babies at Israeli checkpoints” (Biedermann, 2). Wafa’s brother Khalil even pointed out that seeing the horror and gruesomeness to her fellow countrymen “is enough of a motive for any reasonable person’ (to do such acts, and she) has honored the family” (Biedermann, 2). Wafa felt her only option was no longer fixing “the innocent”, but killing the people who did this to her countrymen was her anger finally erupting at the Israelis.

Below is a picture of young children glorifying Wafa Idris.


There has been an immediate trend in detonating one’s body for the “greater good”. There were four immediate female suicide bombers shortly after Wafa Idris’ suicide. From January to April 2008 there have already been seven female suicide bombers. The picture above shows young children embracing the ideals of Wafa sacrificing herself for their country. The question remains, could Palestinians truly stop the violence if there is a peace treaty that was honored by the Israelis? In the end of the Aljazeera clip, Fuad Najjar (son of An-Najjar who was killed before carrying out her suicide mission in the Gaza strip) discusses the ramification of the war on Israeli. “We want the occupation to end, for the Israeli’s to truly leave, and leave us alone. If we had dignity, independence, and freedom I don’t think anyone would contemplate suicide bombings”. With so little trust among neighboring countries, it is hard to see if there could be a conflict resolution. Until the countries can resolve their conflicts Palestinian women will continue to protect their country with whatever means necessary.

For more information:
http://www.israel-wat.com/idris_eng.htm
http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2002/01/31/female_bomber/index.html

This is the first part of the YouTube video: Everywomen- Women in Terrorism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSpH0wtwRzs

Female Genital Mutilation

This is a picture of a young Middle Eastern girl, would you want her to go through Female Genital Mutilation?

Below is a video about an Egyptian woman and her fight for her daughter to not go under female genital mutilation.


In the Arab world one of the most possessions a girl owns is her hymen. Her hymen is the essence of her honor, her families honor, and her societies honor. If her hymen is prematurely broken then she is disgraced because the assumption is she had sexual intercourse before marriage, and therefore no one would want her. The Middle East religious values and honor usually intertwine with each other so intricately that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is thought to derive from their religion, when it fact it actually derives from their culture. The tribulations with rooting all honor on a young girl’s hymen is that anatomically and biologically females differ from each other. “For it is known that 11.2% of girls are born with an elastic hymen, 16.16% with so fine a membrane that it is easily torn, 31.21% with a thick elastic hymen, and only 41.32% with what may be considered a normal hymen” (Saadawai, p26). Less then half of all girls have a “normal hymen” and because of their biological makeup some girls’ honor is already stripped from them. What is more of a surprise is that “if a girl lost her life, it would be considered less of a catastrophe than if she lost her hymen” (Saadawai, p26). One way that a woman can preserve her virginity is to cut off her clitoris before she reaches puberty. By cutting off her clitoris it removes all sexual sensation, and therefore the theory is removing her sexual desire. That is not the solution because many women still have desires to have sexual intercourse because the desires derive from her thoughts and emotions, not a small organ in between her thighs.



Although countries like Egypt (see above video for more information) have started joining forces with UNICEF (an organization that helps for gender equality, nutrition, health awareness, etc) about educating their people FGM is more harmful to women physiologically and mentally and is starting to put an end to it. Educating people who practice FGM may be the means to ending this barbaric problem, but unfortunately people’s cultures may still be hesitant. Even the women and men in medical school still believed in FGM which was astonishing. The reason that Nawal Saadawai, the author of The Hidden Face of Eve, suggest this is due to the lack of education of the clitoris and the role in women’s sexuality. The clitoris, which is considered an organ, is often neglected in most medicine teachings. Therefore the assumption would be it lacks relevance. However not only does it play a role in a women’s lives, the way the women lose their clitoris is barbaric.


For more information:

The Hidden Face of Eve: Woman in the Arab World by: Nawal El Saadawi
http://books.google.com/books?id=u5n9zUZuVI8C&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=the+very+fine+membrane+called+honour&source=bl&ots=kHE9oHw7s8&sig=7kTCbP_F5GjWbKrY73xIT9fuFBc&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

For personal story of a girl who underwent FGM, and her experience from it.
Opening the Gates by Alifa Rifaat

UNICEF’s website
http://www.unicef.org/whatwedo/index.html