A male-dominated electoral campaign has highlighted how easily women are kept to the side in Israeli politics.
Politicians’ faces are everywhere. On billboards, on fliers, on television.
This Israeli election season, however, something is missing: women.
Looking at 2019’s campaigns, it would be easy to conclude that the ruling Likud party and its challenger Blue and White are male-only political movements.
Advertisements and banners from Beersheba to Haifa show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Benny Gantz flanked by men in suits, gazing purposefully out at the voters.
In reality, Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party boasts Miri Regev, a powerful political force and culture minister, as well as Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel.
Gantz’s centre-right Blue and White has Orna Barbivai, the most decorated woman in the Israeli military’s history, in its ranks.
Yet in the days leading up to Tuesday’s election, they’re barely seen. And according to Regev herself, it’s due to popular demand.
Click here to read the full article published by Middle East Eye on 8 April 2019.
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