A few days ago,
Reuters published a photo essay of IDF women going through their final training mission before they are officially inducted into the Karakal battalion guarding the Egyptian border.
This didn't sit well with Egypt.
Al Masry al-Youm reproduces every single Reuters photo, but writes:
Dr Ahmad Fuad Anwar, an expert on Israeli affairs, professor of Hebrew studies and Zionist thought at Alexandria University, said in response to a question by Al Masry al Youm about the purpose of such images and their publication, especially with the strong cooperation within the Israeli army: "Such a phot series is provocative propaganda ...to serve the Israeli army."
Fouad adds that [for Israel] to allow the Reuters photographer to enter the training mission of Caracal and accompany them during the whole day are [it accomplished] several goals, the first of which may be to tarnish the image of the Egyptian side, especially with the facts of several incidents of [Egyptian] live fire on African infiltrators which killed them.
He pointed out that the Egyptian side deals with infiltrators using three methods, namely: hotels, prisons, and deportation, and this depends on the way the infiltrator engages with the troops, and while the Israelis are delivering a message to the world that they are recruiting women to deal with the intruders as they are always considered civilians.
He continued: the second goal is to reassure Israeli citizens, who have a tendency to panic, to calm their fears and apprehensions of infiltrators and drug traffickers, and to deliver a message to the Israeli people that it is under control and it sends women to these hot spots, and the third goal is to beautify the image of the Israeli army as it is recruiting women in combat missions which indicates equality, not only using them for administrative work like a lot of the armies of the region, especially with the publication of pictures of beautiful girls with strong physiques that are always smiling.
Fouad called on the Egyptian side to officially complain to the famous Reuters agency about such images in the Western media, as well as to request the Israeli side to refrain from provocations by releasing such images, and Fouad added that religious Israeli soldiers refuse to work near the women's camps, and he wondered "Should the Egyptian side object to the presence a of battalion on the common border that is two-thirds women?"
Hey, at least he isn't accusing the IDf of using the women to seduce and blackmail Egyptians the way
Hamas claimed once.
(h/t Aaron)
