Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday criticized the reservist pilots who are refusing to serve as a protest against judicial reforms.
“I can’t imagine anything more severe – organizing such a mass violation of the service law. It’s impossible… it’s simply impossible to grasp it!” he said. “This is a case that harms the body of the state, the security of the state! And it’s not just disabling our capabilities, it’s also what it does to our deterrent power!”
Recordings of the prime minister were revealed on Channel 13, where he was heard condemning and raising his voice against the pilots’ reluctance to serve under the reforms.
“I can’t imagine anything more severe – organizing such a mass violation of the service law. It’s impossible… it’s simply impossible to grasp it! This is a case that harms the body of the state, the security of the state! And it’s not just disabling our capabilities, it’s also what it does to our deterrent power!”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
A letter supporting the reservist pilots
In the meantime, hundreds of retired aircrew fighters in reserve published a letter of support for the pilots. “We state in the clearest way to the active reserve group: We will support, without reservation, any of your protest actions, including the immediate suspension of volunteering.
“On Tuesday, the Knesset approved in the first reading a law that fatally harms the legal system in Israel, by an obviously unreasonable expansion of the government’s scope of decisions, beyond any possibility of judicial review. When government decisions cannot be reviewed reasonably by the court, one of the pillars of democracy in Israel immediately collapses, and a direct path opens to a governing space called a dictatorship,” the letter continued.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting next to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister, Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich in the Knesset (credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)Another senior officer, who is a lieutenant colonel and flight instructor in the Air Force, informed officials on Tuesday night that he was ending his reserve service.
The Brothers in Arms reservist group responded to the recordings of the prime minister, stating that “Netanyahu is destroying Israel’s security and relations with the United States. Abolishing the reasonableness clause is a de facto dictatorship. Let him immediately stop the legislation that is tearing the people apart and face the fact that a people’s army only exists in a democracy.”
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.
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