A new book sums up 13 years of research on female participation in IDF combat units and declares the feminist experiment in the Israeli military a failure. “Lochamot Betzahal” by Col. (res.) Raza Sagi, a former infantry regiment commander, points to high rates of serious injury among women serving in combat units, and to involvement of radical political groups behind the scenes of the campaign for combat service by women.

The book's name is a Hebrew play on words that means both "female combat soldiers in the IDF” and “women fighting the IDF.”

"The study found that a particularly high percentage of women who served in combat roles suffered physical harm during their service and will suffer for the rest of their lives from ruptured discs, stress fractures in the pelvis, uterine prolapse and more,” Sagi told Maariv/NRG.

While men also suffer injuries during their military service, he said, studies prove that the female rate of injury is much higher and that the seriousness of the average injury is greater, with entire platoons sometimes unable to function because of the physical state of the female soldiers. The injuries referred to are incurred in training and routine deployment – not actual combat.

"The idea that there is no difference between men and women in the army is a ridiculous one that has been disproved in all of the world's militaries,” Sagi insisted. “One cannot defeat evolution. In days in which a meaningful reduction of the defense budget is required – there is no doubt that the matter of placing women in combat roles requires reassessment.”

"People will read the book and discover that they have been misled in everything pertaining to women's service in the military,” he predicted. “The integration of women in the army has not succeeded, but everyone keeps shouting at us, that we must open before women the remaining units that have not yet been opened to them. I do not know what will help people understand that this is a serious mistake.”

Raz Sagi PR photo

Sagi added that the elements that peddle the agenda of women combat operate “like cancerous cells” and ascribe to radical political agendas. “It is difficult to explain how, of all women, it is specifically those with an agenda opposed to IDF combat soldiers, are the ones guiding the Chief of Staff's Advisor on Women's Issues, and why anyone ever listened to them.”

The book describes ludicrous measures by which women's lesser suitabilty for combat roles is masked. These include lowering the bar of requirements for women wishing to enter combat units, placing benches next to walls that trainees jump over (only for the women to use), running laps in circles (instead of straight-line runs from point A to point B) to make it less obvious that the women are lagging behind the men, and more.

The IDF told Maariv/NRG that Sagi's claims are “completely baseless” and that women's integration into combat units has been a success. “Female combat soldiers are dealt with in a supervised manner, which takes into account their medical, physiological and social needs,” the army said.