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Last update - 16:12 17/09/2007
IDF commission to recommend women soldiers serve in all units
By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press

An internal report to be submitted to the Israel Defense Forces is to recommend sweeping changes regarding the roles of women soldiers, offering equal opportunity to serve in all army units, including elite commando wings, Israel Radio reported Monday.

The radio said the study, commissioned by Major-General Elazar Stern, head of the IDF personnel department, also recommended that men and women soldiers serve equal terms of enlisted duty.

The IDF said the draft report by a panel of officers and academics was a tool for long term-planning meant to maximize the abilities of the women for the overall benefit of the armed forces. It did not have details of the report's recommendations.

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The radio reported that the commission proposed that women no longer be excluded from any unit because of their gender, and that men and women drafted for compulsory military duty should serve for the same length of time.

Men currently serve for three years. Women serve shorter terms, depending on their military roles.

The study is to be submitted in a matter of days, the radio said, adding that the commission urged the military to implement its recommendations within five years.

The panel also will recommend that it will require an order of the defense minister and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for women to be excluded from certain units.

Retired general Yehudit Ben-Natan, who headed the now-defunct Women's Corps, said she had long championed total integration of women in the military and rejected arguments that women should be kept out of the front line because they might be, hurt, taken prisoner or forced to work in uncomfortably confined spaces with men.

"The heart and soul of the army is combat and if we are in the army we need to be at its heart," she told the radio. "Let there be tanks with all-female crews and all-woman missile batteries, because we can do it and we must stop allocating duties by gender."

During last summer's Second Lebanon War, a small number of women soldiers fired artillery, served on naval vessels and flew combat sorties as pilots and weapons system operators. All told, around 1,500 women serve in combat jobs - some 2.5 percent of female conscripts, according to IDF figures.

Sensitive to charges of sexual harassment or misconduct, the military has made strict separation of barracks and bathrooms mandatory.

Some Orthodox Jews protest that mixing the sexes still goes in the face of religious rules on chaste behavior. Other Israelis have voiced concerns that the public would not tolerate women being killed or falling captive.

But the death last year of flight technician Keren Tendler, whose helicopter was downed by Hezbollah fire over Lebanon, did not draw a public backlash against women in battle, suggesting the concept has won broad acceptance.

Aerial combat was opened up to women following a uccessful petition to the Supreme Court in 1995.

The petitioner, 23-year-old Alice Miller, later failed the flight school entrance exams, but the court ruling paved the way to others. Israel's first woman fighter pilot, Roni Zuckerman, won her wings in 2001, aged 20.

"This should have been done a long time ago," Ben-Natan said. "But better late than never."
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  1.   not a bad idea 10:59  |  proudofu 17/09/07
  2.   what about the harideem 11:39  |  SJ 17/09/07
  3.   IDF going downhill 12:30  |  David 17/09/07
  4.   Girls in Battle 12:34  |  german jew 17/09/07
  5.   Girls in combat 2 12:42  |  german jew 17/09/07
  6.   equal rights 12:51  |  realism 17/09/07
  7.   SJ: Do you expect the haredim to serve in mixed units... 12:56  |  Nathan 17/09/07
  8.   Not in my unit- ever 13:26  |  IDF grunt 17/09/07
  9.   #6 Nathan 13:34  |  Yonatan 17/09/07
  10.   Liberal stupidity 14:02  |  Gene 17/09/07
  11.   The final account is whether it`s best for the army 14:22  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 17/09/07
  12.   AN ARRAY OF NEEDS 14:37  |  JON FEIGENBAUM 17/09/07
  13.   Zionism is and must be an always a retreating dream 14:39  |  Hannah 17/09/07
  14.   So then you obviously do not want hareidim in the army 14:39  |  Joe Jew 17/09/07
  15.   #14 Joe Jew - Hesder boy will want to toy 15:19  |  Yonatan 17/09/07
  16.   Israel is a sad society 15:25  |  Baruch 17/09/07
  17.   Provided they meet same minimum standards 15:29  |  Chaim 17/09/07
  18.   Not an original idea 15:38  |  * BEN JABO 17/09/07
  19.   Let`s be practical 15:49  |  * BEN JABO 17/09/07
  20.   Not in my unit 16:28  |  Petra 17/09/07
  21.   Not an original idea 16:30  |  Petra 17/09/07
  22.   womem in combat 16:33  |  elliot 17/09/07
  23.   Insane 16:55  |  Danite 17/09/07
  24.   Hannah 16:57  |  Danite 17/09/07
  25.   Petra- Not in my unit either 17:14  |  Dani 17/09/07
  26.   To Margie 17:30  |  Gene 17/09/07
  27.   Why Deny Reality ? 17:44  |  Mike 17/09/07
  28.   woman fighters 18:18  |  larry 17/09/07
  29.   #13 Greetings Hannah! 19:38  |  ballistic 17/09/07
  30.   #13 Hannah 19:49  |  Sol 17/09/07
  31.   Israeli Girls in Combat Is Politically Correct Murder. 19:53  |  Jim 17/09/07
  32.   The army de feminizes Israeli women 19:55  |  What`s in a name 17/09/07
  33.   to ballistic 19:59  |  Sol 17/09/07
  34.   #29, Ballistic 20:05  |  Hannah 17/09/07
  35.   Gene 20:26  |  Margie in Tel Aviv 17/09/07
  36.   women in combat 20:32  |  Athena 17/09/07
  37.   #33 Say Sol; whatever are you doing in Canada, ole chap? 20:59  |  ballistic 17/09/07
  38.   #34 Hannah 21:11  |  ballistic 17/09/07
  39.   to ballistic 21:33  |  Sol 17/09/07
  40.   was a woman in the idf 22:38  |  tamar 17/09/07
  41.   #39 Sol---she doesn`t have any in Iraq, does she? 22:43  |  ballistic 17/09/07
  42.   #41 ballistic - let`s separate fact 23:35  |  * BEN JABO 17/09/07
  43.   #31 Jim - You don`t know what it`s all about 23:41  |  * BEN JABO 17/09/07
  44.   #38 ballistic to Hannah 23:48  |  * BEN JABO 17/09/07
  45.   #40 Tamar 23:52  |  * BEN JABO 17/09/07
  46.   #41 ballistic with that old saw 23:54  |  * BEN JABO 17/09/07
  47.   #42 Well, if it isn`t Ben Jabber 00:20  |  ballistic 18/09/07
  48.   #44 Ben Jabo--you require a credible source? 00:27  |  ballistic 18/09/07
  49.   # 40 Tamar - Israeli PC Consensus Allows Murder of Israeli Girls 00:40  |  Jim 18/09/07
  50.   #43 BEN JABO - Take A Deep Breath, OK? 01:12  |  Jim 18/09/07
  51.   Women in all units 03:50  |  paul 18/09/07
  52.   OSS 03:53  |  Paul 18/09/07
  53.   Women 03:56  |  paul 18/09/07
  54.   reply to baruch #16 06:12  |  LARRY 18/09/07
  55.   Ballistic - Yes from deadbeats like you 01:00  |  * BEN JABO 19/09/07
  56.   ballistic - you`re still at it, evading as usual 01:05  |  * BEN JABO 19/09/07
  57.   #50 Jim - grab your oxygen tank 02:00  |  * BEN JABO 19/09/07
  58.   Horrible post 02:41  |  Paul 19/09/07
  59.   #58 Paul - which scripture, specify 16:41  |  * BEN JABO 19/09/07
  60.   #57-2 Jim Women in combat 21:11  |  * BEN JABO 19/09/07
  61.   Jim - I`m eagerly awaiting your additional comments 01:27  |  * BEN JABO 21/09/07
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