BICOM

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres yesterday voiced their strong objection to the exclusion of women from the public sphere. At a ceremony marking the struggle against human trafficking that was held in the President’s Residence, both Netanyahu and Peres criticised the efforts to prevent women from singing in the IDF, to prevent women from delivering eulogies at cemeteries and the separation of men and women on public transportation.

President Shimon Peres said, “All discrimination is a grave mistake that needs to be fixed quickly. We mustn’t turn public areas into focal points of discrimination, which contradicts our values.”

Netanyahu added that he “vehemently opposed the phenomenon”, which he said was a “minor phenomenon,” on the part of the ultra-orthodox, that contradicts Jewish traditions. He added that, “equality between men and women is absolute – that is how it has always been, and that is how it will continue.”

US secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking at the closed Saban forum last weekend, reportedly expressed concern about buses in certain ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods of Jerusalem where women were being made to sit at the back.

Today the Ministerial Committee for Promoting Women’s Status will hold a special discussion about the exclusion of women from the public sphere, with representatives including the director of the IDF Human Resources Branch, the CEO of Egged (the largest Israeli bus company), and the mayor of Jerusalem.