by LUBNA MASARWA & MAHA HUSSAINI
Female fighter pilots are now being celebrated for their role in destroying Iran, while women in Gaza struggle to survive
Four Israeli pilots stand, visors down and arms crossed, in front of a warplane – a classic Top Gun-style pose of military prowess, but with a twist. The four pilots are women, with long hair falling onto their shoulders from under their helmets.
It is an image that has been circulating for years, and it resurfaced again in the opening days of the US-Israeli assault on Iran.
The involvement of female fighter pilots in the ongoing operation has been a cause for self-congratulation for Israel’s military, and a point of pride and vindication for many Israelis.
“Approx 30 female aircrew members, including pilots and navigators, are taking part in strikes in the skies over Iran as part of Operation ‘Roaring Lion’,” the Israeli army posted on social media on Monday.
The messaging was also picked up by Yair Golan, the leader of the left-wing Democrats party, who shared the image of the female fighter pilots in a post on social media.
“The participation of dozens of female air crew members in the complex strikes in Iran as part of Operation ‘Lion’s Roar’ is irrefutable proof that daring, professionalism, and patriotism have no gender,” Golan wrote.
For many Israelis who once again find themselves at war, such sentiments convey a clear message about the values – liberal and feminist – they imagine themselves to represent, as well as those they claim to be fighting against.
Deceptive framing
More than 90 percent of Jewish Israelis, spanning the political spectrum from leftists and liberals to the coalition government’s far-right base, support the military attack on Iran, according to a recent poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, an independent research centre.
In street interviews, social media posts and television debates, Israeli women reiterate the same point: they are willing to live under bombardment if it means helping Iranians – and particularly Iranian women – achieve freedom.
“I am writing to you from the shelters, as the echoes of the explosions outside remind me every moment of the fateful connection between our freedom here and the freedom of the people of Iran,” Yasmine Sayeh, an Israeli of Iranian descent, wrote in a post that was shared on a feminist Israeli Facebook group.
Such statements ring especially hollow when weighed against the rising death toll and daily violence inflicted on women and girls across the Middle East by Israel’s war machine
On Sunday, International Women’s Day offered another opportunity for Israeli military and political leaders to drive home the message.
“This International Women’s Day, we recognize the women making every mission possible,” said a post on the Israeli army’s Facebook page, accompanying a video celebrating the female pilots and navigators “carrying out missions in the skies over Iran with precision, focus and courage”.
The Israeli army also released figures revealing that more than 21 percent of combatants are women, a steep rise from around 7 percent in 2015.
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