In The Military

On Thursday, the Pentagon lifted its 1994 ban on women in combat. Presumably, the model the U.S. has studied for integrating women into combat is the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which enjoys the reputation of exhibiting more gender equality than any army in the world, even though Israeli women rarely fight wars. And though Israeli woman serve as fighter pilots, infantry officers, naval captains and Humvee drivers, only 3 percent serve in combat roles. 

The Pentagon news and the Israeli example brought me back to my own military service in Israel five decades ago. 

In my yet unpublished memoir I recognize one of the happiest days of my life to be the day I left my military base for the last time. After a two-year mandatory service, checkered with numerous infractions and courts martial, I was honorably discharged from the army. I remember the great sense of liberation I felt as I walked for the last time from the barrack that was mine toward my base’s checkpoint. As I was leaving my base behind, I walked slowly and deliberately, taking great pleasure in each stride, for each step I took on the base’s main road on my way out brought me closer to freedom, my invisible shackles melting into thin air. 

I was wasted in the army, not because it did not recognize my talents. The issue was less about me than it was about the status of women of my time in the military, and about the exercise of authority, a game one had to understand and know how to play not only to succeed in the military, but to endure it.

I fit in, socially. But little did I know that it would be in the military where my own heart, that which sought wisdom and meaning and fulfillment, would clash with the structure of authority; clash, but not crash. It took tragedy, only three years after my military service ended, for me deal with power and authority the correct way.  

In spite of its grueling nature, basic training was the only good experience I had in the army. On sandy hills I learned target-shooting with my heavy, Czech-made M-16, that shook my whole body with each shot; to throw hand-grenades; to shoot an Uzi; to crawl with a heavy kit-bag filled with military gear and hide in ditches; to watch for the enemy on my left, the enemy on my right, and camouflage; to build tents, peel potatoes, wash aluminum pots ten times my size, dust my barrack, shine my boots, and press my uniform to perfection. But in the end, basic training did not mean much, since in my time women in the military, officers including, filled administrative positions only, with many lower rank female soldiers wasting their talents, often serving coffee to their male superiors and doing other mundane chores. 

On my first night’s watch duty, I was standing alone, guarding an empty spot that had but a small lone bench. The night was pitch black; the air sweet; the silence piercing. All I could see were the shining stars; all I could hear was the faded sound of barking dogs in the distance. Mutely, I was humming familiar songs in my mind so I would stop thinking about how scared I was. Suddenly I heard gun shots from somewhere afar. Fearful, I dropped my gun and ran as fast as I could, an act punishable with a jail term if caught. I do not recall where I ran to. But when all was quiet, I went back to my spot and completed my task. It made little sense to stand there alone, as did most of my military service. 

The Army did not need many of us - females who came out of high school with no skills, but it used us nonetheless, and we did not speak out. I did, in my own insignificant, yet costly way.

To my satisfaction, research and studies about the same issues I confronted appeared decades later with the maturity of the Israeli feminist movement in general and the field of women’s studies in Israeli academia in particular.

Two weeks ago my Israeli great niece Naama successfully graduated her officer's course. I would like to believe that she'll find more meaning in her service than I found in mine. 

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A Family Trip

Last Friday was extraordinary for me and for some members of my extended family.

Forty-five years after my husband Yigal was killed when his armored vehicle was hit by a Syrian shell, twenty-five of my relatives and I went on a trip tracking his battalion’s path on its way to capturing the Golan Heights in a suicidal battle that lasted two days – the last days of the 1967 Six Day War.

We were three generations of cousins, my niece and nephew and their children, and Yigal’s brother and his wife. Some were too young to recall the tense period that led to the war, or know anything about the war or about my past for that matter, though some cousins knew about Yigal from their parents.

We began the trip in the area where Yigal’s brigade gathered before battle. There, sobbing, his brother told us about Yigal’s bravery: Engulfed in flames, he jumped out of his burning armed vehicle, rolled on the ground to extinguish the fire, then, under fierce shelling, running forward he continued to command his unit until he collapsed. Only his belt was left on his body, its metal buckle melted.

He was taken to the hospital suffering burns over ninety-two percent of his body. There, he asked his doctor not to tell me about his injury because I was three months pregnant (I subsequently miscarried).

Earlier, when treated by the field doctors, he asked them not to tell me about his injury so I wouldn’t be disturbed while studying English. I was not. He must have confused his desire to enroll in the Technion (the Israeli equivalent to MIT), to study engineering, with my "English studies."

Our group then drove to Givat Ha’em (Mother’s Hill), from where his battalion began fighting. It was already there that his vehicle was hit. Rusty, it is still standing there as a memorial.

Someone placed the picture Yigal’s brother brought with him safely on the vehicle’s corner. I had planned to tell my family about Yigal and read from my still unpublished memoir a chapter that tells about the war and about Yigal’s death. All wanted me to speak by the vehicle.

There I told them about the tense days preceding the war, when Israel as a nation feared another holocaust because in his speeches President Nasser of Egypt promised to throw all Israelis to the sea. He had already taken aggressive actions that violated the terms under which Israel withdrew from the Sinai Desert a decade earlier.

I told them about our hope that a war would not break out, and about Yigal’s and my goodbyes. I told them about the knock on my door in the darkness of night. I told them about my trip to the hospital, the way I saw him burnt beyond recognition, and about the sound of his last breaths. I told them what his commander wrote about his leadership qualities and his camaraderie and about incidents in our life together that exhibited those characteristics.

I told them about my aunts and uncles – their parents – who, one-by-one filled my apartment upon hearing of Yigal’s death, and about the appearance of his brother there, having been called from the front, and how we silently hugged. Not a dry eye was left in that apartment. I told them that in the corner grocery store, my neighbors were whispering that the silence emanating from our home was worse than a thousand screams.

There was hardly a dry eye left on Mother’s Hill.

We then continued our journey on the path Yigal’s battalion fought until they conquered the Golan Heights, from where the Syrian had constantly shelled Israeli settlements in the valley beneath them.

We ended the trip with a family picnic, on a spot overlooking the now peaceful valley. A family bonded by its closeness and rich history.

My American family – my husband of forty years, my daughter and her family, were not with me on this trip. But that was fine. My past, that which occurred before they entered my life to my delight, belongs to me. The rest belongs with them.

                                                                             ***

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Newtown

On Friday morning I wrote a post on the killing of Najia Seddiqi, yet another women’s rights activist and official who was murdered last week in Afghanistan, only five months after the assassination of her predecessor, Hanifa Safi. Then I heard the news about the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

At first I combined both atrocious events, but I could not post that piece even though the events shared a common thread, that of senseless violence. I decided that my post on Najia should wait, for I had to respond to the colossal tragedy that happened in Newtown separately. How could I not? 

But what could I write? That it is imperative that this country should have an honest debate about its violent nature? That the time has come for both the Federal Government and civil society to finally debate in earnest America’s gun culture, the power of lobbying groups, especially the gun lobby that is one of the most powerful influencing groups in American politics? That we should talk about the politics of mental health and the bureaucratic hurdles families of mental patients have to go through to get the help they need before they give up?

Yes, I should discuss these issues, but so have many others.

What else could I write? That like most people in the US and abroad who saw the news, I was shocked, saddened, dismayed, petrified, and angry? That I hope that these sentiments will remain with the American public long enough to prompt these debates, which will hopefully result in necessary changes, from safer built schools to political and cultural change?

I could write about these issues, but many pundits and politicians have debated them this past weekend. 

I could tell you -- though that will not be original either -- that as a grandmother of two children ages five and seven I could imagine in my darkest fantasy the faces of the beautiful twenty murdered young children to be the faces of my grandchildren, because in the prevailing environment the Sandy Hook massacre could happen in any suburban town in America. But that vision was too horrific to bear. 

I could tell you that I could imagine my daughter and son in law being in that firehouse, awaiting news about their children. But I could not bear that thought either.

I too am a teacher, though my college students are much older than those who attended Sandy Hook elementary school.  At least once I had a seemingly threatening situation with a disturbed student. My school and I took the necessary measures immediately. But sometimes, especially after a school shooting, I visualize a situation when a distraught student enters my classroom with a gun.  Would I act as bravely as the six slaughtered Sandy Hook officials and teachers did? I should never have to find out. 

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Tyranny Defeated; Cruelty that Goes on

Initially I wanted this post to be about my visit on Thanksgiving Day to the beaches of Normandy, where Allied forces attacked German positions from June 6, 1944, to May 8, 1945.  It was a whole-day journey that included the Omaha, Juno and Gold Beaches, where tens of thousands of Allied troops were killed defeating Nazi Germany. We participated in a short yet dignified commemorating ceremony at the impressive memorial in the American military cemetery, which sits on a cliff overlooking Omaha Beach. We ended the day with too short a run in the nearby museum. 

I am used to visit military cemeteries: Since my first husband was killed in war, I have been visiting his grave annually during my trips to Israel.While my visits there are very personal and are naturally moving, there was nothing personal on my visit to the Normandy cemetery. But it was touching nonetheless. With thanks and gratitude my husband and I moved among the graves of soldiers of different ages, some as young as seventeen or eighteen, some killed on the first day of battle. Among the 9,387 graves there are thirty-three pairs of brothers and one pair of a father and his son. 149 graves are of Jewish soldiers.

I meant to write about that day a week ago, as soon as I returned home from our Normandy trip. Being caught with schoolwork I kept procrastinating until today. Then, just before I got ready to write my post I read about Gul Meena, the young Afghan “honor” victim who survived a brutal attack, presumably by her brother, who wanted to avenge her for seemingly being an adulterer, bringing shame on her family. I decided to write about her instead.

According to rumors , Gul, an eighteen year old married woman, ran away with another young man. When her family caught the two, they struck her with an ax 15 times, deeply slashing her face and head; the boy killed. Reportedly, in the hospital, where she is recovering against all odds, no one comes to visit or question her. Not her mother or father, not her tribe members, not the police, not anyone from the Ministry of Women's Affairs. 

Islam does not call for honor killing. Yet most if not all honor killings are committed by Muslims in Middle Eastern, African and Asian countries, and increasingly so in Western countries, including the US. The reason for the murders committed under this cultural custom vary: from killing girls who dress in western style to killing girls who run away from forced marriage or killing  rape victim, often due to incest. And while the majority of these killings are done by the male members of the women’s or girls’ families--most often the fathers or brothers of these female victims--recently in Pakistan fifteen-year old Anusha Zafar was killed by her mother for looking at a boy. The girl's pleas for mercy did not help. 

While there is no accurate statistics about honor killing, in 2011 The United Nations Population Fund estimated that over 5000 women are killed annually worldwide. Experts, however, believe that number to be too low. Tragically, this barbaric practice continues with minimal consequences even in countries where honor killing has been outlawed. And while civil society in some countries try to help potential victims, many times the hand of NGOs are tied because of cultural relativism. It is therefore  up to all governments to protect women against this practice. 

In 2009 UN Women, launched the UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign, which aims to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls in all parts of the world. During its first phase over five million people signed on to the campaign. But less than 80 government added their names to that platform.  In 2011, under this drive UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon directed attention to honor killing. He should lead the way to end it. 

***

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Savita Halappanavar

In a couple of hours I will be leaving for a cruise on the Seine that will take me from Paris to Normandy and back. I am still unpacked. But I wanted to quickly write this entry. 

I am worried about the hundreds of rockets that have been flying between Israel and Gaza, killing fifteen Palestinians and three Israelis by the time of this writing. I am distressed about the violence and its potential ramification on the Egyptian-Israeli and Israeli-Jordanian peace, and on the rest of the volatile Middle East. I am distressed about the range of Hamas’s rockets that have landed in central Israel, including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. But I question the wisdom of the assassination of Ahmed Jabari, though I agree that Israel had to respond to the continuous shelling of its civilian population by extremist Islamic groups in Gaza and to Hamas’s unwillingness or inability to stop it. 

But the events in the Middle East, though close to my heart, are not what I wanted to write about so hastily. What I want to address as a woman is the death of Savita Halappanavar, the 31-year-old Indian woman whose life was sacrificed in the middle of a miscarriage in the name of the right of the unborn.
It happened in Ireland, a member of the European Union, which together with UN Women is actively involved in protecting and promoting women's rights.

Her doctors’ refusal to perform an abortion because her fetus’s heart was still beating even though it could not survive in its mother’s womb was irrational because it endangered her life unnecessarily. Savita’s grieving mother and husband adequately and painfully expressed the absurdity of that decision, which was based on a 1983 amendment to the Irish constitution, guaranteeing the right to life of the unborn. 

While it is not surprising that the “right to life” groups in Ireland rushed to deny that an abortion might have saved Savita’s life, it is encouraging to see the many demonstrators, man and women alike, who demand the immediate legalization of abortion in Ireland, reopening the abortion debate in that Catholic country. 

Savita’s unnecessary and tragic death should not only do the same in post election America, but it the rest of the world. The United Nations Population Division and UN Women could lead the way.  This women’s rights matter is a human rights issue. 

                                                                             ***



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Sandy

Though I had recognized it could be viewed tactless, initially I supported Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to hold the NY's Marathon as scheduled, believing it would imitate a return to normalcy after the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy. 

Living on the seventeenth floor in a building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and hardly affected by the storm (though my neighborhood was flooded by the East River) I could afford such thinking. But as the suffering faces of those who were less fortunate than I kept appearing on TV, especially residents of Staten Island (from where the Marathon was to start), I became increasingly ambivalent about holding the race this weekend. 

But then I walked in Central Park today, as I had done yesterday and the day before, and I made up my mind, siding with those who demanded that the Marathon be canceled or postponed. 

Deviating from my regular path, I found myself at the finishing line of the canceled Marathon, where one could hardly recognize that the event was canceled: Amid cheering crowds there were hundreds of registered runners who refused to let the canceled race spoil their plans.  Many wore their orange shirts, some with their bibs attached. Their resilience was not what bothered me. On the contrary.

Before calling off the race the mayor had assured Staten Islanders and residents of other devastated communities, who were both angered and offended by the Mayor’s original decision, that the resources they needed for recovery would not be channeled toward the Marathon.  But it could hardly be the truth. When I looked today at the completed preparations for the race, including the park cleanup after the storm, the installed bleachers and the portable toilets, I knew the preparations 

required many working hands that should have been cleaning Sandy’s aftermath in those destroyed communities. 

As for the storm, first I watched it through my windows. The East River promenade and the FDR were immersed in water, transformed into one big river. I dared to go out onto my terrace, seeing nature in its mighty grandeur. The sight was fierce but awesome. Standing on the 17^th floor feeling the strong winds and seeing the gushing river was a powerful experience. Then, like a few other crazies from the neighborhood I went down to the water to take pictures. The wind was ferocious, knocking down trees, the water mad. It was truly unforgettable.

My daughter, her husband, and my two grandchildren, who live in Long Island, have been staying with my husband and me since last Sunday. They have had no power in their home and it may not return for another week. Cousins who live in downtown Manhattan had no power till Friday. They came to our home daily to bath and charge their electronic devices. I have been cooking and cleaning round the clock, playing with and reading to my grandchildren, feeling extremely lucky in the aftermath of Sandy. 

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Malala Yousafzai

The good new is that Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen-year-old Pakistani girl who on October 9th was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen is recovering. To recall, Malala was shot because she courageously promoted girls’ education. Encouraging, too, was the anger with which many Pakistanis reacted to the shooting.

The bad news is that less than two weeks after the incident Pakistanis are reported to feel less rage over the shooting of the young high school student. Instead, true to the widely spread conspiracy theories in the Muslim world, they are now becoming suspicious of the United States being involved in the shooting of Malala in order to further tarnish the Taliban’s reputation of extremism, intolerance and cruelty, while Islamists infer that she was an American agent.

Only four months before Malala’s shooting, in July of this year, twenty-five year-old Farida Afridi was also shot, most likely by the Taliban. Farida, however, did not survive the attack. Her "crime" was creating, three years before her murder, the Society for Appraisal and Woman Empowerment in Rural Areas (SAWERA), providing women information about their rights. Though Afridi had been repeatedly warned by extremists about her activity, she continued her activism till her death.

Like Malala and Farida, other female activists have been accused by militants of corrupting the minds of non-suspecting innocent women. These activists have complained of the erosion of women’s rights and lawlessness against women in Pakistan, especially in the Swat Valley, in the north-western part of the country. Despite these conditions some Pakistani women are becoming braver.
Among them is the filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, whose film Saving Face won an Oscar this year. In it Sharmeen bravely exposes the practice of acid attacks on women in her country by abusive men, and the lack of accountability for these crimes.

And let’s not forget Mukhtaran Bibi, who in 2002 was sentence by a Mastoni tribal council for　gang rape because her teenage brother was accused of having sexual relations with an unmarried woman of that tribe. Rather than committing suicide after being raped as custom dictated,　Mukhtaran spoke up and legally pursued the case. Though six men (including her four rapists) were sentenced that year to death, in 2005 a high court acquitted five of the six men and commuted the punishment for the sixth man to a life sentence. In 2011 the Supreme Court acquitted the accused.
While American women are rightfully concerned with domestic women’s issues this elections season, we ought to remember the plight of Pakistani and other Asian women, as President Obama and Mitt Romney discuss foreign policy issues on their last debate before the upcoming elections.

***

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