IDF Spokesperson Accused of Softening the Truth Over Women in Combat Roles

Rabbi Dror Arie claims that the IDF uses “euphemistic language” to obscure the lowering of operational standards as part of integrating women into combat units and the armored corps. One of the most basic values the IDF teaches every soldier and commander from the first day of basic training is the value of reliability and integrity. Trust and integrity are not just nice slogans for award ceremonies, they are in practice the key to cohesion and victory on the battlefield. A military system in which a soldier lies to a comrade, or heaven forbid a commander lies to his subordinates, is a system destined to crack and come apart from within. A commander will not be able to shout “Follow me!” if his subordinates do not believe a word that comes out of his mouth. In an army dealing with life and death and the preservation of life, lying at a moment of test shatters a combat unit into pieces and scatters it in all directions.

Even so, it seems that when it comes to the policy of integrating women, the IDF spokesperson has chosen to adopt euphemistic language that distances itself from operational truth. Everyone knows that the physical abilities of men and women differ. Everyone recognizes the inherent anatomical gaps in mass and body structure. Everyone understands that in order to integrate women into commando units such as Sayeret Matkal, the system is required to lower the physical and operational threshold. But instead of admitting this, we are presented with a “white lie” and told in academic language that this is not a “lowering of the standard” but an “adjustment of the effort scale.”

Only recently, we were told in celebratory headlines that the first female soldier had successfully completed the training track in Sayeret Matkal. But, ladies and gentlemen, that never happened, and there was not even a parable about it. She did not go through the same course the male fighters go through. She did take part in the selection process, but in her own selection, and did not meet the original entrance tests. Therefore, a separate “designated track” was simply tailored for her, the details of which are classified behind a screen of information security. This is not meeting the unit’s operational standard, this is an adjustment, meaning a lowering, meaning engineering of consciousness and imagination.

The same method of throwing dust in the public’s eyes continues now as well in the matter of maneuvering armor, following the embarrassing IDF Spokesperson’s Office statements from recent days. The army is trying to calm things down and says that this is “only a pilot,” and that the issue has “not yet come to the Chief of Staff for a decision.” (Contradiction!) At the same time, the IDF spokesperson solemnly promises that there will by no means be gender mixing inside the tanks and within the maneuvering force. These lies have no legs in the modern battlefield. What does this promise mean? Will the female tank crew fight in an empty, isolated void? Without reinforcements, without logistics, without the accompanying infantry fighters, without the Hedgehog Company, and without the entire combat support framework made up of men? And what will happen when a female fighter is wounded inside the tank, or part of the crew is put out of action under fire? Will the artificial separations of the spokesperson’s office still be maintained then?

The experience accumulated in the Artillery Corps, where women were first integrated into combat formations in 2000, has already proven beyond any doubt that integrating women into field units and training bases creates constant daily friction. This reality does not allow a religious soldier to keep halacha and the most basic standards of modesty in practice. Despite the army’s declarations about its commitment to the “Joint Service Order,” the reality on the ground proves that the gender and legal drive repeatedly erodes the ability of religious fighters to serve without compromising their faith. When lying becomes official policy of the spokesperson’s office, the trust of fighters in their commanders is in existential danger, and on that we must not remain silent. As long as the Chief of Staff does not announce in his own voice that he is canceling the pilot, we will not be in armored corps.