Co-ed Israeli unit accounts well for itself in latest skirmish
I know one of you are going to send me this link soon, so I figured I’d better get in front of you.
According to Associated Press, the Israeli Army’s Caracal Battalion, an infantry unit that consists of at least 60% female soldiers, faced off against some heavily armed Palestinians along the Egypt frontier Friday and accounted for itself very well, according to reports;
In the most recent attack, a shootout on the Israel-Egypt border left one Israeli soldier and three assailants dead. The military said the militants were heavily armed and wearing explosive belts when they crossed into Israeli territory and opened fire on soldiers guarding a team of workers who were building a border fence meant to protect against just such attacks.
An Israeli forces spokeswoman said the troops quickly returned fire, killing the militants and preventing a major attack – a coup for the women and men of Caracal. The battalion fought on Friday alongside soldiers from Israel’s Artillery Corps. In line with its policy not to discuss troop deployment, the military declined to provide the battalion’s size.
Of course, proponents of women serving in US units in the same capacity will wave this banner incessantly, like they did for the female MP, CPT Linda Bray, who earned a Silver Star in Operation Just Cause. And although I don’t want to detract from this successful defense of Israel, it’s really only one operation and certainly not a measure by which we can judge all women in every combat situation, although that’s the way we’ll hear it from the people who think it’s absolutely necessary that we get more female soldiers killed in combat so they can be equal to the men in every possible way.
Category: Military issues
The main distinction is the way in which the IDF organizes units vs. how we do it, and why it works there but would not work here.
1) The Caracal battalion is answerable to its own internal set of physical standards and their equivalent of T/P/Us. They may have some force-wide marksmanship requirements, but the bottom line is that a unit that will go beyond border security, i.e. the paratroopers, will not see their training standards or requirements burdened by a force-wide accommodation.
2) The greater portion of the coalition government is against integrated service on the whole. The Caracal battalion also integrates male ethnic groups that will not serve well with the more religious quadrants, something we’ll see more now that the draft will also include ultra-religions (charedi) Jews.
What this means is that the Caracal battalion allows Israel to say to its secular population, “look, women, too,” without necessitating deleterious force-wide integration. If our military were smart, it would look to that model, but we won’t. As you say, asymmetrical engagements on the Sinai border DO NOT demonstrate that a fielded female force is sustainable in forward operations. Don’t look for Israel to demonstrate that, either: they’ve made clear that this infantry battalion is primarily going to work defensive/security operations.
Thanks for the post!
P.S. I’d still be proud if my daughter goes over there and joins this unit. Better to do that than be a pogue here.
There are plenty of situations where it would be just fine to have women in combat units, not to mention quite a few times when female soldiers would be very beneficial.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still times when women in combat units would be very distracting from the mission. And I’m not even talking about sex in foxholes. I have yet to find a female soldier who would be comfortable with the twice a day mandatory tick checks that infantry in Minnesota and Wisconsin do.
BK: Nice job.
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“In line with its policy not to discuss troop deployment, the military declined to provide the battalion’s size.”
Hell, here we’ll tell you anything you want to know without your even asking. Just ‘Follow us on Facebook!’
The reason this will never happen here can be summed up in two words…political correctness. They take their national defense seriously, here we haven’t had to “defend” America since 1942. The Israeli’s do it every single day. That and knowing comrade omammy doesn’t give a damn about, what choice do they have?
Odd that the pro women-in-combat folks have not made much mention of Sgt Leigh Ann Hester, who was awarded the SS in Iraq in what, by all the accounts I’ve heard, was a pretty nasty engagement. Although to be fair, the folks who want women in the infantry or special forces seem to have diminished quite a bit ever since we got into a couple of very serious wars in Central and Southwest Asia. At least I haven’t heard much from them. They were quite vocal during the Clinton years when most of our deployments were of a “peacekeeping” nature (or better yet, garrison duty where “combat” assignments are more about ticket punching than they are about shooting the enemy.)
BK covered it well.
I’ll add that the Artillery soldiers were providing security for construction of a border fence. The Israeli papers report that they had diverted their attention to some African migrants they had stopped from illegal entry, and were providing them with water when the terrorists took advantage of the situation to approach closely. The IDF KIA was a young Artillery soldier who responded immediately and was killed. The Caracal soldiers operate there regularly in that AO, and were not on scene. They responded from close by, as expected; and apparently performed well.
Caracal are good at what they do. As BK pointed out, I would be shocked to find women in Golani or Airborne. Given that women in the IDF successfully fill all roles at Armor school, I do wonder if there will be any on a tank crew at some time.
I’m curious, BK – why would you rather see your daughter serve in an infantry assignment in a foreign army than in a combat support or combat service support role in ours?
Seems to me that serving her own country would be preferable to serving another. Did I miss something somewhere?
I know at least one woman who could handle the physical aspects of combat with no problem. She’s lived in primitive conditions in foreign countries and is a hardened rock/mountain climber among other things. I’m sure there are others like her.
I do recognize the distraction problem, it’s bad enough with women in support. So just make all female units.
As the Navy SEALs always say, brute strength isn’t as important as mental strength and it doesn’t take brute strength to fire a weapon. See Olympic shooting sports.
Women have fought in combat and resistance movements for thousands of years. When it comes to protecting your home and family, women can be just as deadly as men, sometimes more so, I certainly would be if my family were threatened. And in Israel, their families are threatened every day.
It’s a complicated answer, Hondo, one that unfortunately and correctly feeds dual loyalty questions.
Israel is the personification of “never again.” I feel, in many ways, especially with Obama at the helm, and the growing popularity of Paul-like foreign policy ideas on the right, that Jewish interests are better served in the Israeli military.
We also have many friends and relatives over there, so it’s the matter of, yeah, my daughter could do combat support here, but she could make a direct difference in the lives of her fellow Jews over there, in a way far more visceral. She also has a better chance of her government doing right by her over there.
I could go on about the resentments I feel towards the American Jewish community, that tends to ignore American servicemembers. There’s a shrine at the Philly Jewish museum to my daughter’s friend, Mike Levin, who died as a paratrooper in Lebanon in 2006, but not a damn thing honors dead Jewish service members in GWOT. We’ve got three generations of Jewish paratroopers in our congregation, including a WWII Vet that jumped with the 511th at Tagaytay Ridge, and you’ve got kids running around in Tzahal shirts.
I go back and forth on the merits of it, but Israel is an integral part of our American Jewish identity and will be for my kids as well.
This is good stuff.
I will bring this to the attention of some of my “man hater” gender studies major classmates.
Women are equal(my unwavering opinion) but yet these same folks do not believe that they should be in this role (combat or danger). Them being exploited and all. You know, we want equal work (not so much) but demand equal pay and all….
Boy I love the double standards up here in the Great NW!
They complain about you holding the door open but yet bitch when you do not do it because they cannot walk through it.
Funny how that works.
It looks to me that it was a static defense. If that is the case it is a far cry from Fallujah or Hue. I am not trying to trivialise what this unit did or over simplify the fight, but point out that the type of fight needs to be looked at before we thrust women into Infantry Battalions.
And before the pack comes after me on this, I wish to make it known that I am married to a Gender Studies major from a very, very liberal east coast school.
Lets just say that any opposing views that i amy have had over the years have been rectified. I humbly call it OJT.
Thanks for the clarification, BK.
We’ll have to agree to disagree here. I personally think Theodore Roosevelt got it exactly right when it came to dual loyalties.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9901E0DD1239E333A25750C1A9669D946496D6CF
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=picture+of+popcorn&gbv=2&gs_l=heirloom-hp.3..0l7j0i30l3.1201.4836.0.6911.18.14.0.4.4.1.327.1871.0j7j2j1.10.0…0.0…1c.1.vza2mYHbUvc&sa=X&oi=image_result_group
I’ll just slide this in here.
@9.
I agree there is no platform to honor Jewish GWOT service members or any other conflict for that matter, however we honor gay service members.
Gotta love that. Hoooah!
Hondo, I don’t even know that I disagree with you. I find the dual loyalties to be one large and inelegant dichotomy.
Green Thumb, fortunately the National Museum of American Jewish History has a nice exhibit honoring the dead of this war. But you’re right, the gay troopies will probably have a federally-funded memorial/museum before you can say “RuPaul.”
Back to the topic at hand…inference is all we have with the Caracal battalion and holding it up as a proof of concept for the American military. Their operations to date have included forcing Jews out of Gaza, some kind of action in Lebanon in 2006, and now these limited border engagements. Operations and participating units in Israeli operations are only discernible by reversing casualty reporting, which does disclose units. The major ground operations in Lebanon were securing high ground to deny Hezbollah key terrain, and the siege of Bint Jbeil, the Shiite dominated city in Lebanon. That was some serious house-to-house fighting, where my wife’s friend was killed and his friends wounded. Caracal didn’t sustain casualties that reconcile with the major fighting operations, leading me to believe it was largely static or rearguard in 2006. It’s all inference, but it’s tough to look at their “combat chronicle” and say it demonstrates the viability of women in combat arms. I get the sense that they are insulated from the kinds of operations that would really make the case, as I don’t believe it’s not something that many of our women have already been exposed to.
All women in all situations, no. Some specific women sometimes… hell yeah. Too, I saw a lot of guys – straight guys – I would not want around when the fur flew. I wasn’t combat arms, but I think it’s safest to say there are NO absolute answers, or any way to predetermine who’s gonna hang with you and who’s gonna fail.
Reality check here: It should come as no great shock to anyone that all people are not put together in such a way that you can depend upon them in all situations. If there are, I haven’t met them yet. On the other hand, there are those who talents lend themselves to the various situations we are likely to find ourselves in and those are who we seek out for those situations. I don’t frankly care if my heart surgeon is capable of changing the oil in his car or who he slept with most recently but he better have a good working knowledge of heart surgery and have the stamina to perform it.
Same if I find myself in a bar fight or a fire fight. Whoever is backing me up better be built to fight and hit whatever they aim at.
Simply put – I will gladly accept talent, aptitude and training in whatever form it comes.
About that dual loyalty thing – country comes first for me, of course. Having been born other than in the US, I could have claimed dual citizenship. I never seriously considered it because I had no ties, ancestral or otherwise, to the country where I happened to be born. However, had it been somewhere like Israel, I would likely have had a different thought process. No easy answer to that one. And for me, no wrong answer to where one’s duty lies at any given moment especially when one’s family is involved.
Interesting that it’s the IDF fielding such a force.
I read a report quite some time ago that showed the problem with women in combat wasn’t the women, it was the men. It said Israeli soldiers reacted more protectively toward a wounded female soldier than a male soldiers.
@18. Please don’t tell me you were born in Kenya. My old heart couldn’t take it.
Here’s some old news for ya’ll. Israel has had women in the IDF since before 1947. Remember Golda Mier? She became the Prime Minister of Israel. There is also a mandatory service obligation that applies to all Israelis, well save the Haredi. Oh! Another famous Israeli. Dr. Ruth she was a sniper in the predecessor to the IDF.
@ 20: Naw, your heart is safe! Was just one of those pesky Army brats.
*break*
Stories I heard from members of the Israeli Army back in the day indicated that for the period that women were fully integrated into all fighting units it was found that the women were the more vicious fighters and THAT is why they were pulled out of full integration into the services. We hypothesized at the time that perhaps some of it was related to stature. (There were studies at the time that indicated that short, male police officers were in many more fights than were tall officers.) There were others who suggested that the women simply had that “protecting hearth and home” streak, took fewer prisoners, and had significantly higher kill rates. Maybe showing up their male counterparts? Who knows,
The rest of the Story
http://www.timesofisrael.com/female-soldier-hid-behind-bush-during-sinai-attack/
WEW54 – that’s a common misconception. Until 2001, after Haganah and the other paramilitary groups were folded into a regular force, there were no women in direct combat roles after the 1948 war for independence. The Arab attack then was kind of an “all hands on deck” situation, and women were already part of the Jewish freedom fighter infrastructure. Yes, women have been in the IDF in the intervening years, but until they put together the unit that is the subject of this article, it was like our military — combat service and support.
I remember Golda – we have family members named after her – and while she became Prime Minister of Israel, to date, she’s been the only female Prime Minister of Israel, and she never served in the military, so I don’t know what the point is there. As for Dr. Ruth, she was trained as a sniper, but she’s said in numerous interviews that she was wounded by a bomb that went off in her barracks; she never saw combat, never killed another human being.
Unless women serve in the Caracal Battalion, they still have a shorter period of service than men (24 months vs. 36 months), and it’s far easier for them to get exceptions.
As far as their viciousness, recent examples don’t tell us much, and the only historical anecdotes are the 1948 war. Since most of them were in Haganah, and Haganah was vicious as hell on the whole, I don’t know. The Mufti was collecting mothereffing ears, for crying out loud, so it was do or die.
The expiration date on the Tal Law, which allowed charedi to avoid the draft, was August 1st. I expect that unless Shas mounts major opposition (and they are), that this will happen.
I truly, truly, truly resent holding up the IDF as the proof of concept for women in combat. Most of the arguments made half the time, before the Caracal Battalion, are rooted in a very valuable mythology, but it’s still a mythology.
@23 –
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews , when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”
Must have been a Gharkad bush. Good thing the rest of the unit wiped the world’s ass of those dirt merchants.