Gatekeepers of democracy: The 3 women who are the Israeli gov't's biggest enemies

Rosh Hashanah, along with the subsequent Tishrei holidays, is a time of retrospection. There are end-of-the-year reviews, people-of-the-year awards, best events of the year, and rankings of all the past year’s winners and losers in a variety of categories.

This year, Rosh Hashanah came at the end of one of the most challenging years in Israel’s history. The country is facing difficulties that run the full gamut of society: the economy, high cost of living, security, terrorism, and internal strife. Above all, this year has been marked by internal conflicts that have led to division among the Israeli people, tearing the country apart from within.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sixth government, the most religious and extremist government in Israel’s history, promised stability and tranquility. And yet during the nine months of its existence, its leaders have not stopped to lay down their swords for even one moment.

From the judicial reform to the budget allocations for settlers and haredim and the daily attacks by coalition MKs on the gatekeepers – the Supreme Court and senior IDF and security establishment leaders – the Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir-Smotrich government has left no stone unturned in its comprehensive attack on anyone who does not toe the line.

Ever since Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s belligerent reform roused the liberal camp, which launched unprecedented and massive weekly protests, the government has not stopped creating new reasons for the protesters to take to the streets and defend their cause.

Just this week, for example, Netanyahu and his coalition partners compared the demonstrators to Israel’s greatest enemies, such as Iran, the PLO, and BDS, which only fanned the flames of protest in Israel and in the US.

Looking ahead, immediately following the High Holy Days, the haredi parties are planning to procure a sweeping exemption from military conscription for yeshiva students, which is likely to reignite protests by secular and liberal Israel.

And Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi intends to push forward his own reform and declare war on the major free media outlets, except for those that are loyal to the government, of course.

So, it seems that the new year will commence with no signs of a forthcoming ceasefire between the government and the protest movement it has generated.

The status of women in Israel under Netanyahu

ONE OF the most negative aspects of the Netanyahu government which does not receive enough attention is the shattering of the status of women in Israel. The numbers speak for themselves: Israel fell 23 places on the global gender equality ranking compiled by the World Economic Forum, and was ranked last among OECD countries in the SIGI gender parity index. Netanyahu’s coalition with the haredi parties, which exclude women from their lists, as well as with the most extreme rabbinical streams in religious Zionism, which advocate gender segregation and oppose women enlisting in the IDF, is likely to further erode Israel’s international gender rankings.

It is one of the most male-dominated, patriarchal, and conservative administrations that has governed Israel in recent years. It is has already actively taken steps to erode women’s rights, including expanding the authority of the Rabbinical Courts and promoting events with gender segregation.

While Netanyahu appointed the Likud’s May Golan as Israel’s first-ever women’s advancement minister, like the rest of the coalition’s members, she is more engaged in battles against women’s rights groups than in efforts to support and promote them.

The first action Golan took after entering office was to fire the head of the Government Authority for Advancement of the Status of Women as a first step to dismantling the entire organization. This body has been operating independently for 25 years, and now Golan is trying to turn it into a political organization under her control. Moreover, Golan has been boycotting almost every nongovernmental women’s organization, and has completely repudiated the weekly “Bonot Alternativa” (Building an Alternative) protests, in which hundreds of women clad in red Handmaid’s Tale capes, with their heads bowed, move in slow formation.

Golan has spearheaded a delegitimization campaign against women’s civil society groups, in an attempt to label them as elitist leftists who care only about a limited, privileged group of women, while portraying herself as the down-to-earth leader promoting Jewish and traditional values. From her point of view, feminism as a whole and women’s organizations in particular are just another liberal, progressive stronghold that must be overcome.

This way she is hoping to garner brownie points among her base of Likud supporters. Alas, just like the rest of the actions taken by the government, Golan’s crusade has only served to ignite more fear and deep concern among the liberal  camp regarding the serious and deleterious plans this government might have for 50% of Israel’s population.

While the coalition plans to pass legislation that would enable gender segregation in the public sphere, in the government itself women already have almost no representation and are missing from all crucial decision-making forums.

This phenomenon is clearly visible when one compares pictures from the Bennett-Lapid government, which had the highest representation of women in Israel’s history, with the visuals of the current government, which has gone to great lengths to exclude women from positions of power.

In the previous government, nine of the 27 ministers were women, and nine female directors-general were appointed to government ministries. In the current government, six of the 32 ministers are women, which is less than 20%, and only one woman has been appointed director-general of one of the 32 government ministries.

For a number of years already, Netanyahu’s close circle of advisers has been composed entirely of men. In contrast, former prime minister Yair Lapid’s was almost entirely composed of women. Today, women are largely absent from discussions about nearly every topic held by the current government.

In the security cabinet, there is only one female minister out of 14 (Miri Regev), and the same goes for the committee to tackle the cost of living crisis, where, out of 14 ministers, Idit Silman is the only woman. Netanyahu established a special ministerial committee to combat crime in Arab communities that does not include even one woman, even though women have been main victims of the wave of violence. Moreover, a special ministerial committee dedicated to women’s affairs was formed, but since its inception, it has never been convened.

Women are absent from the decision-making and governmental management processes, as well as from the economic leadership. Over the last months, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich appointed a whole slew of individuals to senior positions within the Finance Ministry and governmental financial bodies, and not a single one is a woman.

The few women who still remain in key positions were appointed by the previous government – namely, Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, Government Companies Authority Director Michal Rosenbaum, and Director-General of the Israeli Competition Authority Michal Cohen. Thus, the government would dismiss all three of these women if it had the power to do so.

By chance (or not), the government’s three biggest enemies, who are the gatekeepers of democracy and public services, happen to be women. The first one is Esther Hayut, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. She has had to withstand constant attacks from the radical judicial reform supporters in the coalition who are determined to weaken the Supreme Court, and who view Hayut as the last guardian of the elitist fortress they are attempting to destroy.

Second is Baharav-Miara, who is constantly clashing with government ministers, especially Levin and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who are in competition with each other to see who can assert more authority over Baharav-Miara. Levin is seething following her efforts to block his judicial reform plans, while Ben-Gvir blames her for all of his failures and claims that she has tied his hands and is preventing him from properly handling terrorism and crime.

From the coalition’s perspective, the role of the government’s attorney-general is not to safeguard the rule of law or ensure that the government operates legally, but to provide advice without imposing limitations or constraints. If it were up to Levin and Ben-Gvir, Baharav-Miara, who was appointed by former justice minister Gideon Sa’ar, would have been booted from her job a long time ago. Their threats that they will terminate her not only have not been veiled, but they have actually been quite explicit. In the meantime, she remains resolute and defiant, standing firm against the attackers and their threats.

Rosenbaum, who oversees assets worth billions of shekels and numerous appointments in the public sector, is also a constant target of bullying by coalition members. Minister Dudi Amsalem, who is responsible for the Companies Authority, has been waging a campaign against Rosenbaum for months. He is applying a forceful and aggressive approach in his attempts to get her ousted from her position, despite the fact that she had been appointed for a four-year term, because she didn’t automatically fall into line with his plans to oust senior officials and appoint his close associates in their place.

Each of these women guardians is going to great efforts in her specific area to curb this ultramasculine government’s craving for power and control, and is subjected to constant bullying, some of which could be described as misogynistic and chauvinistic in nature and motivation.

The daily attacks by coalition leaders on the guardians of the country’s purse strings label them as loathed by their right-wing opponents, and yet this has only served to elevate their status within the opposition camp and turned them into liberal icons, as can be seen from the pictures of Hayut and Baharav-Miara on posters that are confidently hoisted up high at the weekly protests.

Here, too, the boomerang effect has ended up working against the government: Precisely because of the stark absence of women from the top decision-making echelons, the women guardians who are striving with all their might to maintain checks and balances stand out as a beacon of light, or the last stronghold of female leadership.

In the meantime, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi announced this week that the IDF will be opening up new combat roles for women, following a petition to the High Court of Justice submitted by female former combat soldiers. This is further confirmation of how vital the court is in promoting and safeguarding women’s rights in Israel, even when the government tries to weaken them.

Translated by Hannah Hochner.