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Air force chief reportedly vows to keep politics away from service
[IsraelTimes] Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar said to tell meeting that he will not allow political polarization to split troops under his command, notes danger posed to force by refusal to serve
Finally! Hopefully this time our monkeys will copy Israel’s.
Israeli Air Force chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar has reportedly vowed that he will not allow political divides to again split the branch of the military under his command, Channel 12 reported, as calls to boycott reserve duty resurface amid indications from the government that it seeks to revive its controversial judicial overhaul.

According to the unsourced report Saturday, Bar made the remarks during an Air Force meeting last week, telling those present that "dividing voices are again raising their heads recently."

"I am very firm in my intention that this time politics will not return to penetrate the air force," he said during a meeting with senior officers who were tasked with investigating the IAF’s activity on October 7, 2023, during the Hamas
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
-led attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and opened the still-ongoing war in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
 Strip.

Bar’s remarks came as Justice Minister Yariv Levin has declared he wishes to restart a controversial government plan to overhaul the judiciary, making changes that opponents say will significantly erode the democratic nature of the country.

When the government first tried to push through the changes in 2023 it prompted months of mass protests across the country and calls for IDF reservist soldiers to not volunteer for special service duties, including pilots. The judicial plan was eventually paused and then pushed aside by the shock October 7 Hamas attack.

At the recent meeting, Bar reportedly said that on the day of the attack, the air force was "at full operational ability" but, had the attack come a few weeks later, "it is possible there would have been harm to the force’s abilities," apparently referring to momentum among reservists to protest the judicial overhaul plan by not showing up for service.

Last week, former state attorney Moshe Lador encouraged IAF pilots to stop volunteering for reserve duty if the government revives the judicial overhaul.

Lador’s comments sparked angry condemnations from both the coalition and the opposition, as well as from IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who said that the IDF "must remain outside any political controversy," especially during the current fraught period for national security.

After completing their years of mandatory service, IAF pilots regularly continue to serve in the reserves in a voluntary capacity. At the height of the 2023 protests against the judicial overhaul, hundreds of IDF reservists signed declarations saying that they would no longer show up for reserve duty in protest of the government advancing its plans to curtail the judiciary.

Alongside Levin’s calls to bring the judicial overhaul back on the agenda, the government is working on other contentious legislation dealing with the drafting of ultra-Orthodox community members who in the past enjoyed sweeping exemptions from duty.

Ultra-Orthodox parties in the government are demanding legislation to largely preserve the exemptions after the High Court of Justice ruled in June that there was no longer any legal framework allowing the state to refrain from drafting ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into compulsory service.

Israelis who do serve say the decades-long arrangement of mass exemptions unfairly burdens them and their families, a sentiment that has intensified since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught and the ensuing war, in which more than 780 soldiers have been killed and some 300,000 citizens were called up to reserve duty.

The military has said that it currently requires some 10,000 new soldiers — 75 percent of whom would be combat troops — amid the multifront war.

Last week, a former chief rabbi caused a wave of outrage after saying that all ultra-Orthodox men should not be drafted into the Israel Defense Forces.

In October, a group of IDF reservists penned a letter to IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi criticizing the continued failure to draft members of the ultra-Orthodox community.

The letter sent by the reservists comes against the backdrop of bitter disagreements in the Knesset over the issue of enlistment to the IDF.




Posted by: trailing wife 2024-12-24
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=731821