Ehud Barak: If ‘reasonableness’ bill becomes law, pilots and special ops should refuse to serve

Ehud Barak, the former prime minister and former IDF chief of staff, indicates in a television interview that pilots and some other elite soldiers should refuse to continue to serve in the IDF if a bill currently being advanced by the coalition as part of its judicial overhaul becomes law.

The bill in question would prevent the judiciary from using the “reasonableness” doctrine to review decisions made by the cabinet, government ministers and unspecified other elected officials.

It was approved by the Knesset’s Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee on Tuesday and is set for its first reading in the Knesset next Monday. The coalition reportedly aims to have it enacted in law before the Knesset breaks for summer recess at the end of July.

“When a law like that passes a first reading [in the Knesset], it is passed in order to prepare it for its second and third [final] readings,” says Barak to Channel 12. “That marks the sounding of an alarm, a genuine alarm for the entire country.

“On that day,” Barak goes on, “I expect the pilots, the Military Intelligence Special Operations Division, to all repeat their warning: Netanyahu, watch out, the minute you try to turn the first reading into an actual law, we will not serve a dictatorship. Period.”