MK Livnat: Ministerial Committee on the Status of Women will be convened

Debates rage on as discrimination of women and erasing them from public spheres continues, with disagreement between head of the Ministerial Committee on the Status of Women and Shas minister Mashulam Nahari

28/11/2011 12:19

Tags: Segregated buses · Knesset committees and haredim · Army and gender · Gender discrimination · Ha’aretz · Supreme court

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the weekly cabinet meeting. To his right, Deputy Finance Minister Yitzhak Cohen from Shas. His left hand, Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman from United Torah Judaism, 28.08.2011. Photograph by: Flash 90.

Heated debate erupted in the Knesset on Sunday over the continued infringement on the rights of women that has been pulsing through Israel in recent weeks. Religious and secular cabinet members discussed these recent events, and found themselves deep in conflict.

Public debates erupted after religious soldiers left a military ceremony because a woman was singing. These soldiers were dismissed from their officer’s training course, and one petition to the Supreme Court to have this overturned was denied.

19 retired army generals banded together to oppose this discrimination in the military, writing a letter to Defense Minister Ehud Barak and IDF chief Gantz begging them not to allow harm to come to women’s standing in the army in light of these types of demands of religious soldiers.

Major General Orna Barbicai, head of the Israel Defense Forces’ personnel directorate, appointed by Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, reported that the army "must make it possible for every female soldier and any woman to sing at any ceremony and on any stage. We must enable both religious soldiers and women to have a significant army service, and [we must] not exclude them from tasks,"

This claim induced great conflict on Sunday between Shas minister Mashulam Nahari on one side and Minister Limor Livnat and Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor on the other. Livnat announced she will convene the Ministerial Committee on the Status of Women, which she heads, to further engage with recent exclusion of women from public spaces.

MK Limor Livnat: Where there's an exclusion of women, violence against women eventually grows.

"Lately, there has been a worrisome deterioration in the status of women in the public arena. The exclusion of women is also violence against women – women need to get on buses from the back door, posters depicting them are banned or otherwise burnt, they cannot sing before men nor mourn for their loved ones at funerals," Livnat added, calling these happenings attempts to deprive women of the most basic rights in a democracy – freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and the right to dignity."

"Where there's an exclusion of women, violence against women eventually grows” Livnat added

According to sources present at the meeting, Livnat's statement prompted Shas' Nahari to defend religious soldiers and their rights, saying: "We must respect the religious public who finds women's singing offensive."

Netanyahu took no strong stance in the disagreement, simply stating "ultra-Orthodox and the religious have issues they won't back down from, so do the secular, and the exclusion of women and [banning] women's singing are examples of such issues."

To see Ha’aretz coverage of the internet Knesset debate, click here