In response to a legal protest, Netanyahu promises to punish absent military personnel.
According to Reuters, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate against opponents of his judicial reform proposal who threatened to skip military reserve service, calling such threats anti-democratic and likely to strengthen the nation’s enemies.
The opposition has intensified a half-year-long protest movement, and some reservists have threatened to reject call-ups since the religious-nationalist alliance is expected to approve a significant change before parliament adjourns for the summer on July 30.
That has shocked a nation where the conscript military, which recruits reserves during times of conflict and mandates that they undertake regular training, was long seen as a unifying, non-political cause.
“The government will not tolerate disobedience. Without going into specifics about potential actions, Netanyahu assured his cabinet that the government would take action against it and would take all necessary steps to guarantee our security and our future.
With recent clashes on the Lebanese border and an uptick in Israeli-Palestinian violence, Netanyahu criticized the reservists’ conduct as “eroding our ability to deter our enemies who can easily be tempted to attack us.”
VIEW MORE In opposition to judicial changes, Israeli army reservists elect not to serve in the military.
The elected administration “cannot have a group within the military threaten to shut down security if you do not do as we say,” he added. “No democratic nation can obey this order.”
According to opponents of the proposed court reform, Netanyahu is endangering democracy by doing away with checks and balances.
In a letter published in the most popular Israeli daily, Yedioth Ahronoth, on Wednesday, 1,700 former air force officers, including 27 retired generals, warned that the reform bill that limits some Supreme Court powers “will open a direct path to dictatorship” if it is approved next week.
There are petitions circulating that claim to have thousands of reserve members who intend to defy orders signed on them. The names have been obscured in some. It is challenging to confirm the petitioners’ names and that they are actually the target of mobilization.
When asked for numbers, a representative for the Israeli military simply said that “incidents of absences among reservists when called for duty are very limited (and) sufficiently handled by the commanders” as part of the protests.
None of the reserve pilots and navigators opposed to the judicial reform, according to a retired air force officer leading the group, have yet to decline call-ups, according to Reuters. The reserve air crews are required to participate in training flights once a week as volunteers, although some of them have threatened to skip them in the past.
The organizer, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the company “would be willing to stop their service if conditions demand it, though, of course, they do not want that to happen.” Given that around 50% of the crews on combat missions for the air force are reserve members, he said that if it did occur, “there would be a severe problem for the country.”
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption accusations that he denies, supports the revisions as a way to restore the separation of powers.
