“Integrating women into combat units was a decisive failure” says Colonel Raz Sagi in a Channel morning program in Israel. Sagi talks of a scenario that repeats itself for many years, in his words: “The IDF made a study that proved that the experiment of women in combat units failed and then ignores its own study continuing the study as if the previous experiment was successful.”
When the host of the show Yoav Limor asked if it’s possible that the IDF is lying to the public Sagi replied: “They’re not giving us the data on purpose” and described this as “something very serious”. “The supreme test of the IDF is in the battlefield and not in how they promote equal rights.” “I’m not the one who says this, IDF studies show this.”
Sagi explained that this debate is about women in the battlefield where a soldier must destroy the enemy.
“As far as the Air Force the selection process for women is working. In the 16.5 years of attempting integration 5 women succeeded in passing and becoming pilots. However in the field divisions it’s a totally different picture, where 46% of women are injured in training and routine security activities alone. Fractures from walking, broken apart knees and collapsed cervixes… the threshold was lowered 4 times until the department of operational fitness found the women’s threshold went below the level for battle operations. This is a physical failure.”
Sagi also pointed out that: ‘from a military standpoint there is a problem of immodesty that develops from integrating women into the IDF which Sagi calls “distractions.” These words made the host Limor upset as he refused to admit the obvious fact that gender differences do cause distractions more than other things and with those words Sagi concluded.
