Today I was considering writing a response to Sarah Honig's latest column in The Jerusalem Post, but decided that by doing so it would lend credit to her line of argument which is pretty much just a collection of accusations against the left and lacking any coherence.
But something Honig mentioned did stir my thoughts and that was the role of Israeli women in the debate regarding the conflict with the Palestinians.
It seems that Israeli society grants women who speak out on the conflict a certain legitimacy withheld from men. As women, with the image society imposes on women and mothers in particular, right-wing columnists such as Sarah Honig and Caroline Glick enjoy a certain added authority to comment on the situation. Mothers naturally worry about protecting their young, so ostensibly Honig and Glick take their positions with the best interests of our children at heart, and women are incapable of being war-mongers like men.
But this is where we are mistaken, and in fact, I would argue that we are guilty of intellectual sexism that cheapens the arguments of men and women alike and impairs our ability to objectively and rationally evaluate the content of the author's
message, regardless of his/her gender.
We make the same mistake, albeit in the opposite direction, when evaluating the argument made by some former senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces for a political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians - assuming that the former officer is motivated by security interests.
In her piece, Honig uses the authority we grant her as a woman to speak on security matters and condemns women from the left-wing Four Mothers movement. We unconsciously credit her for not been swayed by her maternal and emotional instincts which society as a whole believes affect the ability of women to think rationally. On the other hand, the left-wing deems women from the Four Mothers movement as having the authority of motherhood while the right-wing sees them as being misled by their idenity as women and mothers.
It's certainly no accident that the Four Mothers movement chose this name. They did so in order to call attention to the fact that they are mothers, and thus to accentuate the maternal concern for one's child, in this case for children serving in the Israel Defense Forces.
But this doesn't serve our interests as a country in thinking clearly to fidn a solution. Too much of the discourse here on the conflict, on both the left and right, is based on emotional appeal. This helps give readers of their favorite political columnists a fix by providing a sense of moral superiority, it doesn't advance our cause as a country and is an insult to the intelligence of the audience.
Finally, I must comment on the tone of Honig's column. While I identify myself as a leftist, I have never felt the need to identify the right-wing or settlers as the enemy. Yet Honig, speaking of Israeli leftists opposed to the operation in Rafah, has no such qualms. She quotes a 1942 piece by Orwell on the war against Fascism: "If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, 'he that is not with me is against me.'"
So, Sarah, I ask you one simple question. If we are at war, and I am against you, what course of action should be taken? The venom oozing from your piece would suggest you favor a firing squad for the enemy from within. I hope that I'm mistaken.
