Ex-state attorney: Air Force reservists should stop flying if judicial overhaul revived
Lador argues refusal is ‘legitimate tool’ against attempts to turn Israel into a ‘dictatorship’; president, lawmakers decry rhetoric; PM, justice minister want him investigated
Former state attorney Moshe Lador encouraged Israeli Air Force pilots on Saturday to stop volunteering for reserve duty if the government revives its highly contentious judicial overhaul, as Justice Minister Yariv Levin has declared he wishes to do.
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 that they would no longer show up for reserve duty in protest of the government advancing its plans to curtail the judiciary.
Speaking at a current affairs event in Beersheba on Saturday, Lador said that refusing to continue to volunteer for service was a “legitimate tool” to stop the government from turning Israel “from a democracy into a dictatorship.”
“Pilots who have completed their compulsory service and now serve on a voluntary basis are not only allowed, but in my opinion, are obligated to say, ‘If that’s the country you’re striving for, and are going to create through force and bullying, and are going to be the dictators of, I won’t enter the cockpit and fly this plane because I don’t have to,'” he said.
He added that he didn’t see such a refusal to serve “as political interference at all,” but as a legitimate method of stalling an “entirely wrong” process.
Lador was a vocal opponent of the radical reform agenda that sought to shift power away from the courts and attorney general and dilute the judiciary’s role as a check on government power. Levin’s planned overhaul led to massive social and political turmoil, with mass protests held across the country for much of 2023, until war erupted in Gaza with the October 7 massacre.
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 Israeli national security.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said Lador’s words deserved condemnation “from all ends of the political spectrum.” Advocating for refusal during wartime “crosses a red line that endangers democracy and undermines our future,” Netanyahu asserted.
He called on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to “take immediate action against this dangerous phenomenon,” indicating he sought legal action against Lador.
Echoing Netanyahu, Justice Minister Levin wrote to Baharav-Miara on Saturday evening, demanding that she “immediately order the launch of an investigation” into the matter.
“Calling for insubordination, during normal times and even more so in times of war, is a clear and serious violation of the law,” Levin stated.
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel also called to probe Lador. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, for his part, asserted that Lador “wants to bring another October 7 upon us” and suggested he should be arrested and questioned to set an example.
Defense Minister Israel Katz argued that Lador’s rhetoric “harms the security of the state” and that refusal to serve “cannot be accepted under any circumstances.”
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, formerly a harsh critic of the government’s handling of the war and of the judicial overhaul agenda, decried Lador’s comments, calling them “irresponsible” and deserving of “unequivocal condemnation.”
“Saying such things would have been reckless even before October 7,” he wrote on X, panning Lador for being “willing to gamble on the very existence of the state.”
Across the aisle, former IDF chief of staff and ex-defense minister Benny Gantz, who now heads the opposition’s National Unity party, argued that threatening refusal “takes us back to October 6” and that such behavior ought to remain “out of bounds.”
Former prime minister Naftali Bennett also weighed in, saying that “refusal in IDF service is never legitimate.”
President Isaac Herzog also issued a sharp rebuke, and warned that while democracy protects the right to protest and free speech, calling for refusal to serve “is out of bounds.”
“Anyone who says otherwise harms the security of the State of Israel,” he said, appealing to stay away from “the divisive and dangerous discourse that preceded October 7.”
In recent weeks, as Levin has called for a revival of the contentious legislation frozen by the protests and the war against Hamas, Herzog has expressed deep concern over a number of bills that he said would “touch [Israel’s] democratic foundations.”
He had previously described Levin’s plans as a danger to Israeli democracy.
The issue of the planned reforms flared up again on Thursday when the High Court of Justice ordered Levin to hold a vote in the Judicial Selection Committee to appoint a new president of the Supreme Court, which he has been refusing to do for over a year due to his desire to appoint a conservative to the position — a move for which he lacks the votes.
Legislation involving changes to the makeup of the committee, which would have given the government deciding power on the panel, was perhaps the most radical and controversial part of Levin’s overhaul agenda, which even he later conceded would have undermined the separation of powers.
Levin reacted furiously to the court’s order on Thursday, accusing the justices of Israel’s top court of turning themselves into “dictatorial rulers” who “trample on the choice of the people.” He said it was now critical to decide “once and for all” whether or not to restrain the judiciary.
