Bibi's new Likud party list is a bad sign for women. One of several bad signs.

It's not only how few women are on the party list. It's shocking how bad those women's records are on gender, sexual abuse, and other important issues.

Election season is back in Israel. Again. For the fifth time since 2019. The dysfunctional leadership keeps giving itself another shot following each abysmal failure to govern. This time, the Knesset members even had the chutzpah to give themselves a raise for a job terribly done. Lawmakers added a hefty 30 million NIS to the election budget (more fun ads for the rest of us) — this, despite the enormous strain these elections already put on the budget.

All of which goes to show: If you can get away with something outrageous once, chances are you can get away with it again. People apparently become numb to the outrageousness. (Exhibition A: trump)

And so, here we are, once again, watching parties assemble their lists. It is always somewhat amusing to observe our so-called leaders place their own egos ahead of whatever potential agenda they are supposedly peddling. Pretty much every cornerstone of politicians’ agendas are negotiable in the “What number will I be on the list?” discussion, or “What extra position will you promise me?” or “How do I become more powerful?” Speaking of things we have become numb to. The lack of integrity of Israeli politicians has become almost expected as the norm.

Politics always comes before ideals — that is how Israel works. Remember when Miri Regev admitted that her party refused to support the West Bank law — a crucial bill for her constituents as well as for appearances of democracy — just so that it would hurt the coalition? (Not that the refusal led to any kind of real discussion of Israeli democracy or lack thereof in the West Bank, but that’s a whole other discussion.) Or remember when Orly Levy-Abekasis took down a government when she betrayed the Labor party that had given her a chance. Most recently, Idit Silman, the slimy former speaker who almost single-handedly brought us to this ncurrently ew election, was thankfully blocked by the Election Commission this week in her efforts to get rewarded by Likud for her shenanigans.

Idit Silman, posing in a dark suit and white shirt, with arms folded, wearing a colorful partially-hair-covering head scarf. Her prettiness hiding her complete absence of integrity and an ethical fiber.

It is unbearably sad for me that all my top examples from recent years of politicians betraying their constituents to protect their own political power were about women. This reality is particularly depressing for those of us who have dedicated considerable efforts to advancing women in politics. Their betrayal is not only of their constituents and purported value systems, but also of the possibility — the hope, perhaps — that maybe when women enter politics, they do things differently than men. Hope, wish, illusion….

Still, even if women in power have exactly the same personality flaws as men in power, that is not reason enough to block women’s advancement. Representation matters. Women are still 50% of the population. Our governments should show that. Even if some women in politics bring the same egos and small-mindedness as some men in politics, we still need women’s representation just because we are here.

Plus, it is still more likely that issues that are important to women will be addressed if there are actual women around the table.

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Which brings me to the issue of women in politics, and in particular, what we just witnessed in last week’s Likud party primary.

On the very basic level, the Likud has a gender problem. Only one woman is in the top ten, and only three women are in the top twenty — that is 10-15% female representation. To put that in perspective, this level of representation would is on par with the countries ranked 142 out of 180 in the world in terms of women’s representation — tied with Bahrain and Malaysia (142 and 143), behind Libya (137), Saudi Arabia (114), Turkey (134), Indonesia (107), Egypt (77), and Iraq (68).

Although the Labor Party has made significant inroads in this direction, with a 50-50 list, the seven seats that Labor got last election are offset by the 16 seats that the male-only religious parties got. So there’s that.

But what is more worrisome about the Likud list is not just how few women are on the list, but who these women are.

Number 9 on the list, and the first woman, is Miri Regev, whose true colors as a calculating and soul-less politician have already emerged, as I described above. In terms of her record on women’s issues, she has none, except for one doozy: During the Corona lockdowns, when top concerns for women as a whole were spikes in domestic violence, disproportional layoffs, and the intensification of the double shift in domestic life that will take another 135 years to fix, Regev ignored all that and went to bat instead for a different “women’s issue”. She was extremely distressed about women’s facial hair and fought to make sure that hair removal spas were included in “essential services”. Each to his — her — own I suppose. I have nothing against grooming, but it’s a bit of a shame that her definition of women’s needs amount to, well, how our faces look. As opposed to, say, whether we have money to live or whether we are safe in our homes. Miri Regev. A little tone deaf when it comes to women’s lives.

Miri Regev, in military dress uniform, smiling, posing in front of an Israeli flag.

But that isn’t the worst of it. The most alarming female appointment is the third woman on the list, in spot number 25 that was reserved for a “new woman”. The figure to get that coveted position is a criminal lawyer Tally Gottlieb who has built her career by bullying victims of sexual abuse and defending sexual predators. After she defended former president Moshe Katsav — losing, by the way; he was found guilty of multiple rapes and went to prison — she still maintains that he is innocent and simply “had affairs” and was only found guilty because “he was too embarassed to admit that he was horny”. When she defended sexual predator Alon Kastiel — also badly, as he was sentenced to four years in prison — she said that he was the real victim, and that “all these women complaining are just eager to date him. They go up to his home and then blame him for rape.” She complained often about the #metoo movement and how terrible it has been for men, and about feminists generally (which she clearly is not).

One of the victims of a pedophile whom Gottlieb defended, “M”, posted on social media this week about her experiences with Gottlieb. She wrote that when Gottleib defended the man who raped her for six years when she was a child — her father — she was cruel and manipulative:

During the trial, she tried to prevent me from testifying and purposely dragged out the trial… She tried to make me feel bad for my father… I felt like she was trying to emotionally manipulate me…. Someone like this, who has a lucrative career dismissing sexual assault, I cannot imagine what she would do with her power in the Knesset.

Yeah, good point.

Tally Gottlieb, wearing a white blouse, gold-hanging earings, and long straight hair, dark lipstick, and an austere facial expression.

Oh, and then there’s Mai Golan, the young anti-immigration Israeli equivalent of Jason Miller, down in number 30. I bristle to think how much support she has for her racist rhetoric in Israel.

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Just so we don’t get the impression that all the women candidates are awful (all four of them) and that all the men are angels, here is one more fun fact about a man on the list.

Hanoch Milvitzky, number 26 on the Likud list, is “suspected of convincing a sexual assault victim to commit perjury to protect the leader of a Kabbalistic group that he is a devout member of.” You can read the rest of the story here. Prepare your bucket.

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It is depressing beyond description that not only are we still fighting for the idea that women need equal representation in Israel, but that even when women get into power, they do not necessarily have any commitment to values like gender equality, justice, compassion, or even basic integrity.

As I have said many times, I fight for women’s representation not out of a belief that women are “different”. I definitely do not abide by notions of essential gender differences. My brain is just fine, thank you very much, and not altered because of my X chromosome. But I do HOPE that women — who more often than not carry something in their history wounds and memories from gender discriminiation, sexism, patriarchy, wage gaps, gender stereotypes, unconscious bias, sexual harassment, sexual objectification, gender-based violence, housing injustice, medical injustice, body-shaming, slut-shaming, toxic masculinity, or sexual abuse — would use these experiences as a source of compassion or inspiration once they reach positions of power in which they can make a difference. It’s about our collective cultural experiences, not our brains. I would hope that this would lead to a positive style of leadership and attention to injustices when women are in power.

There is some research to back this up. When there are more women around the table, teams and organizations are more productive, more profitable, and more likely to bring about peaceful resolutions to conflict. Those data points are out there. You can google them.

And perhaps to a certain extent, Labor leader Merav Michaeli, a life-long feminist activist who has been dedicated to values of justice, equality, non-violence and collaborative leadership, may yet prove this to be true. She is the first Labor leader in history to be elected twice in a row. So I guess her people like her. That says something. Although I have been underwhelmed by some of her choices as Labor leader until now, I’ll be paying attention as her leadership style comes more into focus.

Similarly, Zehava Golan, the reinstated Meretz leader, may be a different style of leader. Of course, Meretz may not pass the electoral threshold, so there are outstanding questions about how much Israel is willing to support her, even if they did return her from the land of political retirees to lead the party. I’ll be watching her, too.

Still, I wish there was more evidence in Israel that women leaders are different than our “standard” leaders. This is a hard reality we’re up against. Women deserve better than the Tally Gottleibs of the world. Our entire society deserves better.

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