After the citizens, the army.
Almost all of the reserve pilots of a squadron of Israeli Air Force fighter jets have just announced that they will not be appearing this Wednesday for the military exercises on their agenda, in protest against judicial reforms piloted in Israel for several weeks by the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu, reforms which would threaten, according to these soldiers, to tip the country into a “dictatorial regime”, which they do not wish to serve.
This rebellion by the military body against Israel’s executive and legislative power is unprecedented, as Netanyahu’s sixth government, formed in the last days of 2022 on the basis of a far-right coalition, seeks to end to judicial independence in this country, thus threatening, according to its many detractors, its liberal and democratic roots.
“On Wednesday, March 8, we will dedicate our time to discussion and reflection for the sake of democracy and the unity of the people, and therefore we will not report for reserve duty on that day,” they said. in a letter 37 of the 40 members of the 69e Israeli Air Force Squadron, an elite unit tasked with defending the territory of Israel through missions sometimes carried out beyond its borders.
These reservists say they are worried about the totalitarian temptations expressed by the far-right government led by Bibi, as Benjamin Netanyahu is nicknamed there. Fears which are spreading in several other divisions of the army and the intelligence services of Israel, and this, after David Barnea, big boss of the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, gave the authorization to his staff to take part in the many pro-democracy demonstrations that have been rocking the country for several weeks.
On Monday, as many as 300 Army Artillery Corps reservists, including several senior officers, said in a letter to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the Israeli Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, their intentions to follow this movement of opposition to judicial reforms, describing the thing as a “coup d’etat of the regime [qui] will make Israel cease to be a democratic state in the spirit of its declaration of independence and cease to be the state for which we fought,” reads the missive, quoted by The Times of Israel.
The movement has spread within the famous “8200 division” of the Israeli army, in charge of the country’s technological security, cyber surveillance and cyber attacks, where several senior officers have also expressed their fears about the attacks carried out by the government against the rule of law.
The roots of evil
Less than a week after being sworn in, Yariv Levin, the Netanyahu government’s justice minister, has launched a package of reforms that many critics say threaten the independence of the judiciary and put Israel on the same slippery slope which tipped other democracies, such as Turkey, Tunisia or Hungary, towards a new form of totalitarianism.
Taking advantage of a strong majority in the Knesset, the government managed to pass a bill on first reading that gives its coalition full control over the appointment of judges and seeks to prevent the Supreme Court from reviewing the Basic Laws, which have quasi-constitutional status in Israel.
Under the pretext of “repairing democracy” and “restoring the separation of powers”, Netanyahu’s new government wishes above all to reduce the capacity of the country’s highest court to invalidate laws adopted by Parliament or to interpret laws founders of the state, in particular to establish civil liberties.
Other bills seek to allow politicians found guilty of corruption to hold ministerial office despite everything or to strengthen the power of the prime minister in the face of impeachment attempts. These measures would serve the interests of the Prime Minister who is facing a request to this effect filed before the Supreme Court by a group of citizens, and this, because of three trials for corruption of which he is still the subject.
The new government is also threatening to shut down Kan, Israel’s Public Broadcasting Corporation, targeting criticism from the radical right that sees its independent-mindedness as a bias towards liberalism. Bibi and his coalition would also like to tax non-governmental human rights groups to better promote their extinction.
A bill also seeks to take control of the National Library’s board of trustees to better end the career of its rector, Shai Nitzan. The man is the former state prosecutor behind one of the current corruption trials targeting Benjamin Netanyahu.
On Monday evening, the Israeli prime minister sharply denounced the opposition of army reservists who, by their actions, “threaten the foundation of our existence”, he said during a speech delivered on the occasion Purim celebrations. Galit Distel Atbaryan, the Minister of Public Diplomacy, for her part denigrated the patriotism of these soldiers who went to war against the reforms of her government. “Pilots who condition citizen security on election results are narcissistic beings,” she wrote. on Twitter. They are “not the salt of the earth. Not the best of our guys. Not wonderful people. Not the people of Israel”.
Reservists are an important component of the Israeli defense system, sometimes called upon to serve nearly 60 days a year, including in peacetime.
On Sunday, one of their general in the air force, Ori Seiffert, called them, in a letter quoted by the New York Times, to continue to serve despite their fears. “Like many of us, I am very troubled and worried” about the direction the government is taking, he wrote, while asking them to “maintain the power of the Air Force and the power of the Israel Defense Forces” in these trying times.
“To my reserve brothers, I say: protest and serve, serve and protest,” he added.
For nearly 40 years, Israel has been ruled primarily by right-wing governments, many of which were led by “King Bibi” and his policies relentlessly testing the limits of Israeli liberalism. Accustomed to criticism, the Prime Minister is however faced with a wind of protest which, to date, had never reached such magnitude.