https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-02-01/ty-article-opinion/.premium/israels-model-female-soldier/00000186-0e6e-d840-a78e-7eee03d10000"Barbivai is not an outlier in her camp. She just said what most of its members, male and female, think. The road to equality passes through the army’s bulldozers and men’s killing fields"
Gideon Levy Feb 1, 2023
Israel's 'Model' Female Soldier
Orna Barbivai is a reserve IDF general, a former minister of economy and the second-ranking member of Yesh Atid. In a party in which only one person makes decisions, there is not much significance in being No. 2, but in any case, she is the deputy leader, an important voice in her party and in the center-left camp which, regrettably, is the only alternative to the right.
This week, posted a video clip on Twitter, showing a female lieutenant colonel taking part in the shameful . Thus wrote the reserve general: “A female officer participating in the sealing of a terrorist’s house is a powerful response to a government that devalues, segregates and excludes women only because they are women.”
Powerful or not, this is indeed an appropriate response to the right: There is no difference between you and us. This is the feminist response of the opposition, which has declared war on the government. If anyone tried to find some consolation in the belief that there is some opposition in Israel to war crimes, occupation and apartheid, along came Barbivai and proved that there isn’t this isn’t any. When it comes to war crimes, we are one united nation.
At first, I thought that this was an ironic statement referring to feminism. But Barbivai’s Barbie quickly turned out to be real. A female officer committing a war crime is for her a source of pride and an issue to be used in a feminist campaign. Yesterday they burned bras and today they are sealing houses. Yesterday they were ashamed of these crimes and tried to hide them, now they wave them around as a source of pride. Just bring on more female house-sealers and women will stand tall. What would Shulamit Aloni, Eleanor Roosevelt and Betty Friedan say?
It’s not just the twisted, sick feminism which believes that equality in carrying out killings and demolitions is a desired objective, it’s the whitewashing and even the applauding of the crime. The fact that women are not yet full accomplices to the rapaciousness exhibited in the territories is totally to their credit. The fact that they do not participate in shelling and bombing raids as men do in war is a badge of honor for them. What is condemnable is the ambition of many women to attain equality in the army, with all its embedded violence. They won’t rest until we have a female chief of staff, or at least a leader of a commando unit. And if this applies to the army, why not in crime organizations? There, too, men are in sole and total command.
It’s always the time to talk about the occupation
Behind Israel’s legal basis for sealing and demolishing terrorists’ homes
A foolproof recipe for fueling the Israeli-Palestinian cycle of violence
Barbivai believes that sealing the house of an innocent family is a source of pride, great heroism, and that the participation of a female officer in such an operation attaches great honor to women. Look how in the video the officer softly strokes the metal sheet, checking that it is completely sealing the house. It’s not just a house being sealed, it’s the lives of parents, children and elderly people who live there, the house being their entire world and the only thing they own. How cold-hearted can one be to take part in carrying out this cruel action, and how insensitive can one be to take pride in it? What does Barbivai know about the terrible tragedy that befell the house’s occupants who did no wrong, with their world suddenly collapsing around them? What does she know about international law, that pesky buzzing for most Israelis, which prohibits collective punishment? Is there any more collective punishment than holding parents, grandparents and children to account for the actions of a son? Is there a more terrible, discriminatory act against women than the demolition of a family with many women, only because one son sinned? Is there more definitive evidence of Jewish supremacism when this horrific penalty is imposed only on Palestinians and never on Jewish terrorists, including the most murderous of them, such as Baruch Goldstein?
Barbivai is not an outlier in her camp. She just said what most of its members, male and female, think. The road to equality passes through the army’s bulldozers and men’s killing fields. If this is feminism, maybe chauvinism is preferable? At least it’s not hypocritical. And if this is the center, what’s so bad about the right? When you have Barbivai, there’s no need for extremist MKs like Almog Cohen.