United Torah Judaism MK: Women serving in the IDF is not 'human nature'

The issue of women serving in the IDF has been a long contested subject for the ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset.

JUNE 30, 2021 18:34

A SELECTION of photos of women in the IDF from inside ‘Women on the Front Lines.’ (photo credit: DEBBIE ZIMELMAN) — A SELECTION of photos of women in the IDF from inside ‘Women on the Front Lines.’

(photo credit: DEBBIE ZIMELMAN)

United Torah Judaism MK Uri Maklev took to the Knesset plenum on Wednesday to speak about his opposition to women serving in the IDF, and particularly in combat roles.

"A man's way is to fight, a woman's way is not to fight," he said. "In nature – in healthy, human nature – the women do not fight, and for many years we have followed this assertion that fighting is the job of the men. No matter how much you try and oppose human nature, it will not help."

Maklev also referred to a recent social media post shared by Labor leader Merav Michaeli in which she stated that women get cold more easily than men in order to strengthen his argument, saying that "even the transport minister who has promoted gender equality for years understands that there are large differences for between men and women."

למי יותר קר?הופעה של @Eli_Barbel pic.twitter.com/7iuO48rHjV
— ישכר זלמנוביץ Isachr Zalmanovitz (@zalmanovitz) June 27, 2021

During his time as Deputy Transport Minister in 2020, Maklev advocated for the enforcement of gender segregation on buses in the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) sector, and pushed for women to sign agreements which would force them to sit exclusively at the back of the bus.

"It's a justified arrangement, this isn't discrimination but for the benefit of women," he said in an interview with haredi newspaper Bakehila (in the community) at the time.

The issue of women serving in the IDF has been a long contested subject for the ultra-Orthodox parties in the Knesset. In May 2021, Noam leader MK Avi Maoz demanded that the IDF Gender Affairs unit be dismantled because it "fatally wounded" the "values of the IDF."

Despite this, however, according to a Na'amat poll conducted by Geocartography Knowledge earlier this year, over 70% of wider Israeli society supports the idea of women serving in combat roles in the IDF, and only 11% believe that women should not serve in the IDF at all.