And as someone who knows about minority rights, you probably know that even those have limits. And the limits are where the constraints upon who grants the rights make it impossible to accomodate them, or when they conflict with a greater infringement of another groups' right or with the function of the organization involved, in this case the army. .

Listen, I think none of us can boast having the perfect solution to the problem, nor can others who have dealt with it far more professionally. Will Kymlicka, Jeremy Walrdon, Bhikhu Parekh, and recently, Alison Dundes Renteln, are all trying to come up with solutions for such dilemmas, and worse ones, which make our little argument pale by comparison. I think no one really holds the golden key to a door that will resolve everything to everyone's satisfaction. So the solution is to talk about these things and understand them better, and try to get along.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that your neat suggestion, according to which no woman is limited but none of your religious senstivities is offended, doesn't really translate itself to the realities of running a large scale military organization. We both understand (I hope) why it is impossible to expect the army to have duplicate units in each and every regiment, one which is 'men-only' and one which will theoretically be 'mixed'. This would be a tremendous waste from a logistics perspective, and would also have consequences similar to the ones in the workplace. Based on research about employment prestige in many other fields, I find it very likely that within a few months, the male units will enjoy a more lucrative reputation and will therefore attract even men who have no Halachical reservation to serve with women. The end result: segregation, and women who can't 'serve in any role and place'.

The other extreme is having one or two units which would be 'men-only' and the rest would be mixed, as far as numbers go. This means even less than what you're getting now. It doesn't give you much choice about your service place according to your abilities, nor does it give the army much choice to make the most out of you.

So far it seems that you're really getting it 'your way' more than the women are, particularly in certain social sectors, but even if this will some day not be the case, it doesn't mean things will be abysmal for you: The key to living together in a multicultural society - and that includes a closed military base - is respect and cooperation. Same as you'll be expected to "put up" with the female presence that is so threatening and problematic to your religious values, the women will have to respect you, refrain from touching you during their period (if you inadvertently brush against a woman in the street who is menstruating and don't know that, does it count as an offense? Eeeeeh, ok), respect your requirements to prayer, and perhaps use milder language with you, in the same way that the majority of the army, including non-Jewish soldiers, respects your Kosher food choices despite their different culinary preferences.

Because if we REALLY want to know what multiculturalism is about - beyond having separate groups in cultural ghettos yelling 'I have rights, I have rights' - it means learning more about each other and making it work, in the real life, through communication.

You know, while you would see serving with me as a liability, I would consider it an opportunity to learn about your world and your values, get acquainted with the people behind the kippot and perhaps the black clothes, and forge a friendship that goes beyond what we look like and come from, into who we are as people. If anything can forge a friendship like that it would be a "brothers-in-arms" situation. Is it naive of me to hope that someone on the other side wants to know what a secular woman thinks, what she reads, listen to some of her music or childhood stories? Your post seems to indicate that it isn't.