Amira Dotan
Posted on | November 3, 2008 | No Comments
Member of Knesset and retired Brigadier-General
Feminism is the ability to do what you want to do. It must be on the table immediately that there are two different genders. Women need to believe that men are who they are and we are who we are, and to be proud of who we are instead of spending so much energy imitating men. Then we will have more energy to do what we want to do, and questions of harassment and violence lessen because men see you as equal.
As Brigadier General, did you see yourself as a peacekeeper or a fighter?
That was not one of the questions we in the IDF asked ourselves. The unique part of being in the Israeli Defense Forces is there in the name. We want to be strong to defend ourselves. Peace is part of it, in making sure no one harms our family and our country. We don’t send our children, our soldiers to fight somebody else’s wars and we don’t want somebody else to fight our wars, we are doing it with our own ten fingers. The notion of defense is part of peace.
Have you ever been in active combat?
During the 1972 war, I commanded units of women soldiers. I was in Sinai, near the place where active combat was taking place. I didn’t actively fight, but I had my gun and was prepared to defend myself. My task was to make sure the female soldiers that were part of the combat unit were safe.
The next time I was in combat was during the first Lebanon war in 1982. I thought it wasn’t fair for the Reservists to be deployed in the region for 9 months, as it affects the families and economy of Israel. I suggested to the Chief of Staff that women combatants replace the reservists, and succeeded. However, I gained most of my wrinkles and white hair about this time. It’s a great responsibility to put female soldiers in combat duties in Lebanon. It was a historic moment because it was the first time Israeli decided that women would take part in active combat.
However, it is a huge responsibility. During the last war in Lebanon, a young woman was killed. She was a mechanic in this airplane, a task that was not for women until I led the changes for women in the Army. I didn’t know her at that time. She was in reserve duty and volunteered to do the job. When she was killed, I become part of the family. I know her now because of stories of her family and friends.
Do you have hope there will be a time when Israel will not need a defense force?
Always. I am very optimistic. I will do my best to make sure that we work people-to-people on the ground to deal with the human sides of living in the Middle East. It’s not about big issues like peace and war, it’s about how to find your counterparts in order to live peacefully.
Do you have Palestinian counterparts?
Absolutely. When my husband passed away, I felt I had to give birth to something. I asked Shimon Perez to bring together a network of women in the Middle East. We put together an NGO of businesswomen of Jordon, Palestine, Morocco, and ourselves. The first meeting was June of 1995. I told my friends, the Israeli participants, I believe that it will be easier for me to deal with the other Middle Eastern participants than the Palestinians. From your experiences in the Defense Forces, you feel that they are your enemy. Yet, they came to Tel Aviv and my immediate feeling of sisterhood was with the Palestinian women. When I saw those Palestinian women, it was as if we had grown up together. We had the same jokes, the same understanding, the same mentality.
If you could speak with all Palestinian women, what would you say?
I would say that in our hearts, each of us knows the truth. We should play our game and not someone else’s game. Our game is to make sure our children and children’s children will live in peace and understanding.
Being a brigadier general, professor, or member of Knesset is a record of certain abilities and traits: mental, rational, stubbornness, trustworthiness. It’s a reward. Motherhood is not a reward. It’s making sure life continues after you, and that something of your abilities, traits, and emotions will be part of life after you’re gone. Because of that, we should play our game and not others’ games.
Dotan, a member of the Knesset with the Kadima party, serves on key committees, including Foreign Affairs and Defense and the subcommittee for Trafficking in Women. The first woman Brigadier General of the Israel Defense Force, Dotan served from 1965 to 1988, capping her career as Head of the Women’s Corps. She commanded women’s units during the 1972 Yom Kippur War. Dotan co-founded The Center for Mediation in Law.
