At least 180 senior fighter pilots, elite commandos and cyber-intelligence specialists in the Israel Military Reserve have told their commanders they will no longer volunteer if the government proceeds a plan to limit judicial influence at the end of the month.
About a dozen have already resigned, but hundreds more have discussed the possibility in face-to-face meetings and online forums this week and are preparing to officially suspend their service in the coming days, according to interviews with 12 of those reservists and the group Resignation Letters and Notices from The New York Times.
Military leaders fear it would severely affect the capacity of Israel’s armed forces, particularly the air force, and tempt full-time soldiers to consider resigning, said two senior defense officials, who spoke anonymously due to the volatility of the situation.
Israeli fighter squadrons rely heavily on reserve pilots, who hold regular civilian jobs but volunteer for several days each month to train or participate in combat and reconnaissance missions. Israel’s regular attacks in Gaza and Syria; patrol missions over Israel; and surveillance missions over Lebanon and the occupied West Bank are often led by reserve pilots and drone operators, often with more experience than full-time staff.
Future Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities in Iran would also be heavily dependent on reservists.
Their threats of resignation reflect the deep social rifts deepened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to undermine the power of the judiciary. Mr Netanyahu’s coalition – the most right-wing in Israeli history – aims to pass a bill by the end of July that would do so Reduce the paths in which the government can be overruled by the Supreme Court.
The bill is part of a larger series of proposals that has sparked the longest-running wave of proposals protests in Israeli history led business leaders to do so sell from Israel, created a Distance According to several nationwide polls, it sparked conflict with the Biden administration and sparked widespread fears of a civil war.
For the government and its supporters, the measures would improve democracy by reducing the influence of unelected judges on elected lawmakers. The plan is “not the end of democracy, but rather the strengthening of democracy,” Netanyahu said this week.
The Israeli right has long viewed the Supreme Court as an unaccountable bastion of the liberal elite, which has curtailed some of Israel’s efforts to establish settlements in the occupied West Bank and blocked certain privileges for ultra-Orthodox Jews.
But for the government’s critics, the Supreme Court is a crucial protector of a pluralistic society. They fear the government’s plan to limit the number of courts would harm democracy by removing one of the few checks on government transgressions and potentially later allow Mr Netanyahu to interfere in his ongoing corruption trial. both allegations that Mr Netanyahu denies.
Many reservists also fear that the deterioration of Israel’s judiciary could make them more vulnerable to prosecution at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as it could reinforce the argument often made by critics of Israel that the Israeli judiciary is not sufficiently independent to hold its army accountable pull.
The ongoing judicial reform is “a first and significant step towards a judicial coup that will lead the State of Israel into a dictatorship,” said a senior reservist in Unit 8200, an elite cyberintelligence unit that monitors and defends against online Threats, wrote this week in a resignation letter to the unit commander in chief.
“I love the State of Israel and believe now is the time to fight for it and its image as a liberal democracy,” the reservist added. “As a result, I’m being forced to take a step I never thought possible and suspend my volunteering for reserve duty.”
Those who have already announced their intention to resign or have already resigned include fighter pilots, flight instructors, drone operators, senior hackers from Unit 8200 and senior reserve officers from Sayeret Matkal, the elite commando unit that operates behind enemy lines and in which Mr. Netanyahu once served.
At least 220 reservists in Sayeret Matkal are preparing to publish a letter in the coming days announcing they will give up their volunteer service if the law is passed by the end of July, according to a draft of the letter that the Times is available.
“Until the current legislative processes affecting the independence of the judicial system are put on hold, we cannot continue to volunteer for reserve duty in the unit,” the draft reads. “We recognize the damage that can occur if we don’t volunteer for the unit’s reserves, but right now we have no other option.”
While all reservists are still expected to serve in the event of a war breaking out, the decision of pilots to avoid training and deployment outside of wartime is expected to continue to weaken Israel’s military capacity. Pilots must train regularly to maintain their combat readiness. If they stop training for even a short time, they will be barred from participating in military operations until they regain their skills, officials say.
Similar warnings and resignations in March played a crucial role in the government’s decision to suspend an earlier round of judicial changes. Unrest among the reservists prompted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to speak out against the overhaul, which in turn prompted Mr Netanyahu to do so Fire him.
His sacking sparked a violent wave of street riots and labor strikes that briefly halted flights from Israel’s main airport, eventually leading to Mr Netanyahu doing so freeze the legislation and later reinstate Mr. Gallant.
It is unclear whether Mr Gallant would again publicly protest the overhaul. When asked to comment on this article, he said in a statement, “Threats or outright denials of service harm the IDF and Israel’s security.” I call on everyone, left and right: We must keep all political discourse outside of our armed forces permit. In this regard we must remain united.”
In an official statement, the Israel Defense Forces downplayed the threat of resignation, saying the number of people who refused to be called up was “very limited”. However, the number of reservists who had not yet been called up but had formally requested their commanders to retire early was not disclosed.
And the military acknowledged that the reserves “constitute an inseparable part of the IDF’s operational capacity and the IDF’s ability to fulfill its purpose of protecting the security of the citizens of the State of Israel.”
In private, senior defense officials are preparing for a larger wave of public resignations in the coming days.
Some 40 reserve pilots held a private meeting with Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar last Monday, where they discussed the possibility of more pilots retiring, an outcome that General Bar firmly opposed, according to two presenters.
A larger group of 350 reserve pilots met privately the following day to discuss their options and hear from legal experts about the court’s proposals.
A constitutional law expert, Suzie Navot, briefed them on the proposed legislation, and a former Attorney General, Avichai Mandelblit, explained that the soldiers could be at greater risk of being prosecuted by foreign prosecutors for alleged war crimes, assuming that Israel’s own judicial system would have been undermined by the government’s proposals.
Jonathan Rosen contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
