Weekly Update Tishrei 8, 5768 (Sept. 20) Issue: 6801

A committee established by Head of IDF Personnel Major General Elazar Stern, decided this week (as expected) to include women soldiers in all military combat units and under all circumstances.

This is not surprising. When women were first included in combat units a number of years ago, Moshe Feiglin wrote to the heads of the Religious Zionist hesder yeshivas and stated that if they do not establish an ultimatum against introducing women into combat units, they would also not direct their students to refuse orders to expel their fellow Jews that came a few years later. And that is exactly what happened. Those religious soldiers who received authorization from their rabbis to serve in combat with women soldiers eventually also received directives from the same rabbis to expel their brothers from their homes.

Just as the expulsion from Gush Katif became a value in and of itself -- detached from any reason, so the inclusion of women in combat units has also become a value detached from any military or security benefit.

The following article, from Moshe Feiglin's book, "The War of Dreams," was written in 2001, when the issue of women in combat units first arose.

Women in Combat Units and Inverted Values: By Moshe Feiglin

24 Av, 5761
August 13, 2001

Between a slaughter in a pizza shop and a massacre in a coffee shop, between shootings on the roads of Yesha, shootings in Jerusalem and rockets on the settlements of Gush Katif, the State of Israel has been occupied in the last few weeks with the question of women's service in combat units. A stranger would not understand. Don't the Israelis have enough troubles? Why are they bringing another trouble on themselves? But in truth, it is all the same trouble. It is all the same disease.

The State of Israel has entered a sort of values vertigo. The heavens are the earth, the earth is the heavens, good is evil and evil is good. The most obvious expression of this vertigo was Rabin's handshake with Arafat on the White House lawn. That handshake seated all the Israelis on the defendant's bench in the International Crimes Court at The Hague. It implied Israel's recognition of the legitimacy of the struggle of the Palestinian Liberation Organization -- the organization that strives to liberate "Palestine" from the yoke of the Jewish occupation. In other words, that handshake created the Palestinian nation, recognized the fact that it has a homeland in the Land of Israel, that this homeland is occupied by the Zionist colonialist conquerors and that the terrorists are really freedom fighters -- necessarily making the Israelis war criminals.

The criminals who perpetrated Oslo rode upon the vehicle of post-modern/feminist philosophy. To understand this on a deeper level, we have to understand the forces at work here. On the most basic level, what is happening in Israel is a war between life and death. Good, morality and life -- are one. Evil and death also embrace each other.

"Behold, I have set before you today life and goodness, and death and evil."
(Deuteronomy 30:15)

There is good and there is evil -- and not as the pagan post-modernism would have us believe. There is life and there is death. Life is created by separation of the sexes, and not as feminism would have us believe.

Life is created by separation. The cell divides, differentiates and develops. The primordial default is death and confusion. In the beginning, there was chaos and disorder and darkness on the face of the abyss. Then the Creator of life began to make separations: between light and darkness, between the sea and the dry land, between animals and humans, between men and women and between the nations of the world and the Jewish People.

Life is not static. In order to preserve life, we must always invest energy in making separations. Every mother knows that the natural condition of the house is "a mess" and how much energy must be invested on a constant basis to preserve the separation that transforms the mess into a living and functioning household. Death pulls us inexorably toward its depths. Materials that are not separated will mix together. If we want to keep them alive, we must invest energy to separate them. Chaos and disorder, the blurring of distinctions, the pagan enticement to give in to the whirlpool that draws the world down to its death -- are all forces that the Nation of Israel must face.

These forces of death always wrap themselves in an enlightened and preening cloak. They present themselves as the pure beauty of life. They speak in the name of order and civilization. But in truth, they serve chaos and disorder, darkness and death.

"Why did you insist on ruling that two men constitute a family?" Chief Justice Barak was asked. "If the homosexual partner is eligible for compensation, you could have awarded it to him on a regular contractual basis. Why mix laws of matrimony into the ruling?" In typical dictatorial fashion, Chief Justice Barak felt no need to explain. It is unlikely that he himself understands the forces that motivate him. But in essence, he uses all the dictatorial tools that he has created in order to foster confusion. Confusion of values, confusion of sexual identity, confusion of the family unit, confusion of our national identity, confusion of our territorial borders, confusion of separation and return to chaos, disorder and death.

What motivated the woman soldier who wanted to be a combat pilot to appeal to the Supreme Court? Was it a rare outburst of love for her homeland? Was it eternal Zionism? Or was it the desire to express herself as a man -- the best that feminist confusion has to offer?

It was clear from the very start that the Supreme Court would cooperate with her in full. Its ruling broke down the very last separation of the sexes that still existed in the IDF. It makes no difference that women soldiers in combat units critically reduce the operational abilities of the unit -- a fact that has been proven in other armies that have already reneged on the preposterous idea. Trash the IDF, crush the State -- the main thing is that we achieve our goal. We will take advantage of the young women's desire to contribute to the State and channel it for our purposes. We will take advantage of the most respected Israeli value, the security ethos -- the basic survival instinct that remains the last justification for the existence of the nation of Holocaust remnants -- and use it to drag this confused and tormented nation down into the whirlpool of chaos, disorder and death.

And where do the rabbis come in?

"Did I do the right thing?" the brave woman soldier, Chani Abramov asked the Chief Rabbi who came to visit her in the hospital. Did the institutional rabbi think that she was asking his medical opinion? Deep down, she felt the pain of falsehood that added to the pain of her shattered face. The Rabbi mumbled a few word of encouragement and left. Did he understand the issue?

The Ultra-Orthodox rabbis have no problem. Their forecasts were precise and they can rub their hands in affected sorrow as they wait for Zionism to self-destruct. In the end, though, all the Jews get thrown into the pits of death together.

And where are the Zionist rabbis, heads of the hesder yeshivas and the NRP? How can they accept this situation? They are in Zionist captivity. Their self-imposed dependence on Zionism does not allow them to understand the destructive process that is taking place here. Their arguments against the service of women in combat units are truly humiliating.

The Leftist broadcasters have a field day with every stuttering rabbi who explains his opposition to women serving in combat units because it makes it too difficult for the male soldiers to concentrate on their mission. "Aha!" the broadcasters rejoice. "What kind of thoughts do you have in your heads? This is solid proof that when you separate between the sexes, it creates even more severe problems. Separation is death. Chaos and confusion are life. If it is difficult for you, dear rabbis, to face women in combat units and to continue to abide by Jewish law -- no problem. We will create religious reservations for you. Don't worry, we'll work it all out."