Missing the politician for the double X chromosome

A few days ago, tennis star Serena Williams was asked about her “going down as one of the greatest female athletes of all time,” after winning Wimbeldon.

William’s answer – “I prefer the word ‘one of the greatest of all time’” quickly went viral, and it’s hard not think of the line when looking at the Hebrew print press Tuesday morning, which heralds the ascendancy of Theresa May among other stories that seem to coalesce around females’ place in society.

Maybe it’s because the normally opinionated Israeli press doesn’t know much about May, whose way to 10 Downing Street was cleared yesterday as her last challenger dropped out, or maybe it’s because they just can’t see past the fact that she has two X chromosomes, but it seems papers have little more to say than Oh, it’s a woman! Margaret Thatcher was a woman too!

The comparisons to Thatcher and other leading ladies of British and world politics, including Queen Elizabeth, Golda Meir and Hillary Clinton, run about as thick as coverage of May is shallowly centered on her gender.

“The New Iron lady” is what Yedioth Ahronoth christens her on A1, though it fails to point out any similarities aside from those two X chromosomes.

Israel Hayom plays up her friendship with slain Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, and editor Boaz Bismuth crowns May one of the “four queens of comedy Britain” in a column that makes it seem like he regards the country’s political system as another version of “The View.”

“There’s no doubt that Britain has become a story of queenship,” he writes in a paragraph tacked onto the back of several hundred words of worn pabulum on the effects of Brexit. “Next to Queen Elizabeth stars today the next prime minister Theresa May, who will need to consider Labor Party contender Angela Eagle, and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is calling for another referendum on Scotland leaving the crown. In a situation like this, Boris Johnson really doesn’t have a place.”

At least there’s Anshel Pfeffer in Haaretz, who counsels against comparing May to Thatcher, though only because she seems more like Play-doh than iron.

“In general, even though she terms herself conservative-liberal and is situated at the center of the party, it’s hard to call a woman who supports deporting refugees and invading the privacy of Internet users in the name of national security a liberal. And yet, in a speech in which she laid out her main goals, there were also flashes of centrism and even the left,” he writes. “It’s still hard to learn from all this how May will act in her role as prime minister. She’s a careful and thoughtful politician who doesn’t normally act quickly or rashly. Even though she opposed Brexit, she uncompromisingly committed herself to respect the will of the people.”

If papers do look at anything beyond May’s gender, it’s her position on Israel, which is viewed generally favorably.

Pfeffer calls her an “enthusiastic Israel supporter.”

Yedioth uses the exact same headline in an article recalling a 2014 trip here in which she termed the kidnap and murder of three teens in the West Bank a “cowardly act of terror,” in the newspaper’s telling. (In actuality, she said “This act of terrorism is particularly grievous and cowardly given it was aimed at three teenagers.”)

The paper quotes MK Tzipi Livni, at one point thought to be the next Golda Meir, who also sees May as a woman first and an Israel supporter second.

“A woman at the head of a government is always a positive step that brings a new outlook and approach,” the paper quotes her saying. “When I met May in 2014 we spoke about the need and the right of Israel to defend itself.”

Yet it’s unclear if Livni would have the same words for another female politician, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, one of the architects of a bill passed Monday which forces NGOs with foreign government funding to take certain steps toward transparency and which is seen as targeting left-wing groups.

Haaretz leads off with the story, complete with a headline quoting opposition to the bill and Shaked crowing about how great it is.

“Imagine if Israel had funded British groups supporting leaving the EU,” the paper quotes Shaked saying in defending the bill and being topical at the same time. “Britain has national pride; it wouldn’t let Israel intervene in internal matters. Until now we’ve bowed our heads, and from now we shall bow no more. I am proud of what I see from here and I see from there. I am an ideological minister.”

The story doesn’t get much play in other papers, with Yedioth burying it on the bottom of page 16. Israel Hayom doesn’t place it nearly as deep, but its coverage is overshadowed by a picture caption of MK Hanin Zoabi speaking to a nearly empty plenum, after most of her fellow lawmakers decided to boycott her, according to the paper.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Zionist Union MK Elazar Stern is quoted saying.

Yet in Haaretz’s op-ed page, former foreign minister Moshe Arens mounts a defense of Zoabi, not because she is a woman (the feminist slot is taken up by another op-ed, by former Meretz MK Tzvia Greenfield, who has always been regarded as an oddity for being an ultra-Orthodox woman in a staunchly leftist party), and not even because she is an Arab, but because she is a loudmouth Arab woman who can be used to show the world what a great democracy Israel is for keeping her around.

“Her outbursts in the Knesset are proof that Israel is a model democracy. That the slander that Israel is an apartheid state and is going down a slippery slope toward fascism, is belied by her very appearances in the Knesset,” he writes. “Proof that not only can the freedom of speech existing in Israel serve as example to other democracies, but that there probably are no other democracies where this kind of slander against the state would be permitted. It is hard to imagine such attacks on the state in the American Senate or House of Representatives, the British parliament or the French legislature. Only in Israel.”

You know what else is only in Israel? An army with a chief rabbi, though some may be regretting that after it came out Monday night that the man next in line for the position may not see much wrong with raping non-Jewish woman in the heat of battle.

For pure shock value, Yedioth features the offending quote by Eyal Karim in big block letters on its front page and inside the paper.
“During war you can give in to your evil inclination by lying with good-looking goyesses against their will,” screams the quote,which he wrote in answer to a theoretical question regarding Jewish law, though the headline doesn’t include that bit of context.

One would have to look inside for the bit of info, though doing so opens a whole closet of other skeletons from Karim’s closet including other statements seeming to support rape and opposition to women serving in the army.

While the statements are uncouth enough to offend anyone, man or women, the paper gathers only responses from females, who are, you guessed it, not pleased.

“Karim is not fit to be chief rabbi of the IDF, a body where tens of thousands of women serve, and is not fit to represent Jewish ethics in any way,” Meretz head Zehava Galon is quoted saying. “His disturbing, racist and violent statements justifies the killing of women.”