Again Betzalel Smotrich blew a fuse. This time in his sights: Gender-mixed fighting battalions. These, he says, dull the IDF's competence, and he is right.

The goal of promoting women is of course welcome, but their introduction into a tank does not promote them. It is important to promote women, but what can you do? This isn't the IDF's role. They should deal with that in the Knesset, in court, in civil society organizations and what not. Not in the IDF. It's just dangerous, it's already been written in blood.

Incidentally, the female fighters who enlist in the IDF probably give it their all. They make efforts, they try, and for that they deserve respect. They came to give. They certainly don't deal in or wish for the weakening of the IDF.

But it's dangerous. Not just because of the lowering of the level of training, marches, and loads. This is especially dangerous because it is inconceivable that an intensive care emergency physician would stop treating patients according to the severity of their condition for the benefit of women or minority advancements. It's beautiful, exciting, maybe important, but it's not his job, and it's dangerous, and very irresponsible.

The IDF has a very simple role, none is clearer: Destroy the enemy, and that's it. No painting benches, no paving roads, no helping Eritreans, or even social enterprise or women's promotion. When dealing with this, it necessarily comes at the expense of the main thing, distracting and confusing fighters. Lectures on equality, liberality, and inclusion are fabulous, but none of them will be useful at the moment of truth. On the day of war and on the battlefield, only the combatant's skill, fighting spirit, his faith in the rightness of his path, courage, and, yes, the knife between the teeth.

And in recent years, the fighter reads the newspaper, watches TV, looks at his senior commanders, the content put out by the Education Corps and the IDF Spokesman, and it is unclear to him what the role of the IDF is. Apparently, our dear IDF occasionally sheds off the dusty olive uniforms, wears a civilian suit, and promotes civilian values ​​of equality, women's promotion, LGBT, and whatnot. It should be noted honestly that the current Chief of Staff Kochavi seems to be changing the trend. But the long-term damage has already been done.

Furthermore: Women's organizations, such as the Women's Lobby, and the wealth of New Israel Fund organizations, act on this issue as a mole. They trumpet girls' ability to fight, but do not at all hide that a part of their goal of advancing women in the IDF, including in combat units, stems from the belief that the entry of women into the military and combat system will lower the level of "male warrior cruelty" and promote the sought-after peace. For them, promoting women and equality is worth endangering lives, and is more crucial than the value of winning wars, which is already very dangerous.

To me, there is a clear line that, although out of sight, connects a host of disgraceful incidents in the various terror attacks in Judea and Samaria in which fighters forgot their task in the moment of truth, as in the recent incident of Golani fighters in Gaza who did not charge a single terrorist, and the confusing atmosphere prevailing in the army in relation to its purpose, in relation to the enemy, in relation to the Land of Israel and the People of Israel, and this is dangerous. I recently spoke to many battalions from the Gaza Strip. They are confused about commands and tasks. First they scold them for shooting higher than the knees, being careful about every hair on a Hamas terrorists' head at riots on the fence, and then they chew them out because they didn't engage the enemy sufficiently.

Now here, it's easy to write this. But outside, in the general media, people are afraid to talk. They are tired of catching flak, preferring the comfort zone. A few single voices make noise, and life proceeds dangerously as usual. There is only one brave one with elephant skin, who saved our lost honor. Minister Smotrich must have the skin of an African elephant, there's no other way to explain it. If he wasn't a politician, he would certainly be fighting with a knife between his teeth.

Translated by Mordechai Sones