Hundreds of reservists sign declaration outside IDF HQ over refusal to volunteer

Hundreds of reservists are signing a declaration near the military headquarters in Tel Aviv, announcing that they will no longer show up for volunteer reserve duty in protest of the government advancing its plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Earlier today, the Brothers in Arms protest group — representing thousands of reservists — said they were responding to the government advancing legislation aimed at preventing courts from reviewing decisions by the government and ministers based on their “reasonableness.”

“We will not serve in a dictatorship… The bill to annul the reasonableness test that is planned to be voted on in the coming days tramples the values ​​of the Declaration of Independence and runs counter to the spirit of the IDF, which brought us up, and on which the state was founded,” Brothers in Arms says.

Separately, two senior Israeli Air Force reservists announce they are ending their volunteer reserve duty in protest of the government advancing its plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Shelly Gutman, the former commander of the Hatzerim airbase, and Brig. Gen. (res.) Amnon Ein Dar, the former head of the IAF’s Air Division, join more than 160 other senior IAF reservists who announced last night that they are suspending their volunteer reserve duty.

“I will not continue to volunteer under a regime that unilaterally changes the basic agreement between the citizens and the state,” says Gutman in a letter to IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar.

Gutman and Ein Dar and the third and fourth brigadier generals to announce they are suspending their volunteer reserve duty, as two brigadier generals are included in the letter of the 161 senior IAF reservists.