By Walter Block
No, the IDF should not accept women in its ranks, certainly not for combat positions (we make an exception for the case of Israeli female soldiers needed to deal with enemy prisoners on the distaff side and other such non-combat roles).
Why is this a spectacularly bad idea? Let us list some of the reasons.
First and foremost, women are the limitation on population size. Whatever the present rate is, in Israel, it is too low. The entire existence of the Jewish state depends on human reproduction. Serving in the military is a dangerous occupation.
How many eggs does a woman have. If she starts at age 13 and ends and 43, that is 30 years. Multiplied by 12 months per year we arrive at 360. How many sperm does a man have? That’s a silly question. An uncountable number.
Why subject your most precious resource to additional, unneeded, danger? The farmer keeps one bull and 50 cows, not the other way around. Some 49 of the bulls are superfluous. Ditto with males and females. It sounds horrid to say this, but men are natural cannon fodder in protecting the precious Jewish state.
Second, if there are an insufficient number of IDF soldiers, rather than enrolling women, there are two far better options. One, pay a higher wage to all. Supply curves slope in an upward direction. This is a basic premise of elementary economics.
Two, while we oppose the draft as non-ideal, as long as it is in operation, there should be no exceptions for the Haredi. There might have been some excuse for this policy in 1948, when there were far fewer members of the category, proportionally, but that time has long gone. There is simply no reason, no justification, for allowing this outdated policy to continue.
Third, men naturally protect women. This is a biological imperative. This is why the human race is still around. Males have been safeguarding women since the days we occupied the trees and the caves, even before we became human beings. In an all-male army, there is an optimal ratio between protecting each other and fighting the enemy. These two considerations all too often occur in combat. We do not know the proper ratio. Posit it to be 90% – 10%. That is, each soldier should first and foremost defend his colleagues, rather than kill the enemy when the two come into conflict.
With women soldiers, the ratio will rise; stipulate that it is now 95% – 5%. This means that the IDF, the sole protector of the entire country, will be less effective than it otherwise would be. But we want the most bang for the buck we can get. We want to get as close to this optimal ratio as we can, whatever are the specific numbers. Women in the military will pull us away from this optimum ratio.
Fourth, another biological imperative. Men compete for the favors of women. Jealousy arises. The last thing the IDF needs is soldiers who are concerned with anything but their military duty. Competing for women should be entirely banished from their very thinking. It detracts from their role as soldiers. It cannot be denied that the presence of female soldiers will exacerbate this challenge to good military order.
Fifth, this push to enroll females in the army comes from the direction of political correctness. That is a problem in and of itself (while we are on that subject, boys should not be allowed to enter girls locker rooms or engage in sports in competition with them). But when it risks the very existence of the Jewish state, it is time, it is way past time, to reject this pernicious doctrine in all of its emanations.
Let nothing said above be interpreted as the denigration of female Israeli soldiers. They are as ferocious as any mother bear protecting her cub. More than likely, they are as able a member of the IDF as any male counterpart of theirs. This holds, presumably, in all aspects of modern warfare with the exception of hand to hand combat: not knives, no guns, just brute force. But how likely is anything like that in the modern day? Slim to none is the likely answer.
No, what motivates me, here, is something altogether different. Israeli women in particular and Jewish women in general, are far too precious to be expended in any such manner, if our demographic is to endure forever. This war will soon be completed with a full victory up to and including unconditional surrender. Let this be the last war Israel is ever called upon to engage in, for its own defense. Let this entire column, then, become moot.
Sources
Faran, Oded J.K., and Walter E. Block. 2025. “Solving the Haredi Military Draft Crisis.” The Jerusalem Report, p. 14; September 8;
I agree, but women in non-combat roles in the army have a valuable contribution to make. Nursing, instructing, dealing with prisoners – all are often better done with a female approach. And if a woman becomes pregnant while in service, she should be allowed immediate leave.
Conscription in the Israeli military is mandatory for everyone, male and female.