The IDF has proven that it doesn't care about female soldiers - comment

This past week, it was revealed that female cadets in the IDF officers’ course were instructed to guard the terrorists who targeted Israelis on October 7, committing violent acts of sexual assault and murder.

These cadets, with no training in guarding security prisoners, were ordered to guard the Nukhba terrorists in pens within IDF bases surrounded by barbed wire. This after the cadets argued that they would rather fight in the Gaza Strip, according to Israel’s KAN News.

State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman condemned this assignment and compared it to the report on sexual abuse by security prisoners towards female prison guards, which the comptroller’s office publicized in November 2022. The report revealed then that 38% of female prison guards were sexually assaulted one or more times while on guard duty.

Said report had come as a response to the Gilboa pimping affair, a series of sexual assaults orchestrated and carried out against female soldiers and prison officers in Israeli prisons from 2014-2017.

The investigation at the time was looking into several reports by female guards in the prison that higher-ranking male guards were pimping them out to the security prisoners. Some said that their phone numbers were given to released prisoners. Others said they were regularly groped against their will.

The case was opened back in 2018 but closed due to a lack of evidence. In 2022, Israel Police attempted to stop the reopening of the investigation despite a handful of new testimonies.

That same attitude – one encouraging the turning of a blind eye towards the irresponsible treatment of women serving their country – was seemingly adopted by the IDF as well, when it came to the reckless choice of placing untrained female cadets as guards for terrorists after they had systemically raped and murdered women on October 7.

2022 report reveals lack of backing for guards 

“The report revealed that there is a disturbing attitude of a sexual nature on the part of the security prisoners towards the female prison guards in mandatory service and that there is a lack of backing from the commanding echelon for these guards,” Englman said during a conference in Eilat on Tuesday.

“After the audit teams met with female soldiers in mandatory service who served in all the prisons where security prisoners are incarcerated, we found in the questionnaires we sent that 38% of them experienced one or more sexual assaults. It is unacceptable that after Israel was burned before by security prisoners harassing female guards, they would put IDF female cadets in charge of guarding terrorists that were complicit in sexual crimes on October 7.”

The IDF’s response was, to put it mildly, lackluster. “The officers’ course cadets take part in the war effort even during their training,” the spokesperson’s unit said.

“As part of this, the cadets man security tasks according to their competence and after appropriate preparation. If an unusual event occurs during the activity, the incident is dealt with severely by the commanders of the facility. In addition to the cadets, additional forces are stationed at the facility to handle security events.”

This, of course, does not answer the vital question: Of all the possible missions these cadets could have been given, of all the crucial services and tasks desperately needed during wartime, why specifically them, and why specifically these security prisoners?

This issue dates far further back. As you may recall, in early October – indeed, right before Israel was attacked and the war broke out – it was revealed that a prison guard had been threatened into a non-consensual sexual relationship with a security prisoner.

Yair Ohayon, the victim’s lawyer, told The Jerusalem Post’s Michael Starr at the time that the terrorist had threatened to “hurt her and her family and to ruin her life.”

Despite this issue being systemic, despite women being placed in vulnerable positions without their consent and ending up victims of sexual abuse, Israel’s security systems as a whole have turned a blind eye.

The guards in the Gilboa pimping affair were in their mandatory service. The cadets, while required to sign on for extra time in their service, were not asked whether they were comfortable guarding rapists.

The fact that they reportedly told their commanders that they would instead serve in Gaza rather than protect these terrorists goes to show how deep the rabbit hole of IDF cognitive dissonance goes.

The author is deputy editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.