How To Deal With The Women Of The Wall

The first step in dealing with a group is to understand that group's purpose and its internal dynamics.  This is something excitable types never seem to want to do but in the current conflict between the Chareidi authorities at the Western Wall and the Women of the Wall it is crucial that we observe those factors if we are to responsibly deal with them.
Therefore we have to note a few important points:
1) This group is not homogenous.  This is not a gathering of hairy men-hating lesbians who want to destroy the Torah.  Well, some of them might be but most are not.  It seems instead that the group breaks down into two basic parts.  The first is the more vocal one, the followers of Anat Hoffman.  While I cannot comment on their shaving status or sexual preferences it is quite clear that they are not interested in approaching the Wall from a position of halachic acceptability.  They have picked and chosen those public Jewish rituals they find personally meaningful, redefined the word Judaism to create a new religion that only cares about those things and then demanded equal access to the Walls since they call what they practice "Judaism".
2) The second group are women who could be categorized as left-wing Modern Orthodox, the YCT type of folk.  These women are quite different from the Anat Hoffman group.  They are genuinely interested in being proper halachic Jews but their understanding of how decision-making in halacha works is flawed.  As a result they seek to  approach the Wall solely within the basis of what they think halacha allows.  They have been lumped into the other group and are not distinguished from them but their aims are quite different.
3) Both groups thrive on attention.  They are well aware that the Chareidi position is perceived by the vast majority of the Jewish population of Israel, including many well-meaning folks in the Modern Orthodox community, as hostile and intolerant and therefore inherently "unJewish". They know that the more they poke the bear, the more outsiders to the conflict will side with them. They know they have the secular court system where real legal power lies on their side so they have everything to gain from creating confrontations.
As a result, responding to the WoW's must take these factors into account.  To wit:
1) We must understand that no compromise like that offered in the Sharansky plan will be acceptable to the WoW's.  The Anat Hoffman group isn't interested in creating a small egalitarian prayer group over at Robinson's Arch.  They want to bring their new religion and its smattering of Jewish practices to the main plaza because they need the attention to survive.
I well recall years ago the night that the Conservative synagogue I grew up in went egalitarian.  When women were asked afterwards if they would now regularily attend services they all replied in the negative.  Having won the battle for their "rights" they had no interest in exercising them.  Anat Hoffman surely knows that much of her crowd is there for battle, not prayer.  In the absence of a confrontation many of these women will no be interested in simply showing up and praying.  How dull.
2) The second group, the LWMO one, must be taken more seriously.  These are women who are interested in genuine worship of God but simply have some misunderstandings leading them in the wrong direction.  An education outreach, an understanding of what they are interested in and an implementation of accepted halachic leniencies is certainly in order here.  This is all the more important because this group is not interested in an egaliatarian group at Robinson's Arch.  They are not seeking Reformative worship but rather they want to be Orthodox within certain understandings.
3) The most important thing to do is to demand calm from the Chareidi side.  The more riots there are, the more screaming and violence, the more inflammatory statements, the more the WoW's gain public and legal sympathy.  Honestly, who would you rather side with, an aggreived woman in a tallis who just wants to pray or a slavering Chareidi protestor screaming about the purity of Torah?  Knowing this, and knowing that the WoW's know this the response to their provocative actions must be muted or creative.  The attempt by the local Beis Yaakov schools a few weeks ago to swamp the women's section at the Wall was creative.  The subsequent Chareidi rioting from then men's section was not.  Once their spotlight shrinks their movement will lose its momentum.  Condescending editorials, screaming, and promises of violence will only do the opposite.
Above all we should remember what the fighting is about.  Newspapers love to state that the Wall is Judaism's holiest site.  Well it isn't.  It's the elevated piece of land beyond the Wall that is the Har HaBayis, our holiest site.  How odd that we're not even thinking about fighting over that with its current occupants.