Netanyahu lends ‘full backing’ to IDF brass after attacks by son and Likud minister
In joint statement, PM and defense minister say they reject ‘any attack against top officials’ and express support for military, after Amsalem rails at reservist ‘rebels’
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued a joint statement on Tuesday defending the Israel Defense Forces and the security establishment, following repeated attacks on top IDF brass from within the coalition and from the premier’s son Yair in recent days.
The mounting attacks by lawmakers, Netanyahu confidants, right-wing media, and others come as the IDF has repeatedly voiced concern over damage to the military readiness caused by some reservists’ refusals to carry out their duties in protest of the hardline coalition’s controversial judicial overhaul legislation.
In their brief statement Tuesday, Netanyahu and Gallant said they are “working in close cooperation and fully backing the IDF chief of staff and IDF officers to guarantee the security of the country and its citizens.”
The pair said they “reject any attack against top officials in the security apparatus, and back IDF commanders and soldiers who are working day and night for the security of Israel.”
Earlier Tuesday, Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem of Netanyahu’s Likud party lashed out at top military commanders, claiming the IDF was seeing a “rebellion” in its ranks that IDF chiefs were failing to quell.
Known as a Likud rabble-rouser who previously called to jail anti-overhaul protest leaders and oust the attorney general, he also urged on Tuesday for prominent opponents of the government’s judicial overhaul to “rot” behind bars.
“In any normal army, you treat rebels like rebels should be treated,” Amsalem told Army Radio.
He castigated IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Air Force chief Tomer Bar over the thousands of reservists, including many pilots, who have said they will stop their volunteer duty in protest of the coalition’s efforts to weaken the judiciary.
Amsalem’s criticism was swiftly rebuffed by President Isaac Herzog and Gallant, also of the Likud, who on Tuesday hailed members of the Israeli Air Force as “the best people in the State of Israel” after touring the Ramon air base with Bar.
“I appeal to elected officials: If you cannot contain yourselves, attack me, the defense minister,” he said. “Keep the IDF out of the political debate.”
Gallant also swiftly defended Halevi on Monday after Yair Netanyahu shared a Facebook post that said the IDF chief “will be remembered as the most failed and destructive chief of staff in the history of the IDF” for not cracking down on the reservists.
The post was deleted from his page around half an hour after it was shared.
Gallant praised Halevi as “one of the most excellent officers that I’ve met in all my years in the IDF and security establishment.”
Without explicitly condemning the post shared by his son, Netanyahu tweeted that the country faced “big challenges,” and that he was “working day and night together with the defense minister, the IDF chief of staff, senior IDF officers and security forces to jointly guarantee Israel’s security under all circumstances.”
Halevi, Bar and others have warned that the reservist protests are having an increasingly negative impact on military readiness, drawing rebukes from Netanyahu and supporters of the far-right, religious government.
Security officials voiced concern on Monday that, by allowing repeated public attacks on top military brass, is trying to shift responsibility onto them over the current harm to the state of military readiness.
On Sunday, military heads were said to have warned Netanyahu that the army would really begin to feel the negative impact of the reservists’ protest in another two weeks, when large drills are planned according to the Kan public broadcaster.
The brass told Netanyahu that IDF readiness would worsen in the case of a constitutional crisis, harm to the IDF’s international standing or the passage of a Basic Law that would expand draft exemptions for yeshiva students, Kan reported.
On Monday, Channel 12 reported that the security establishment was “stunned” by the recent attacks on the military from coalition lawmakers, who were irate last month after over 1,000 members of the Israeli Air Force announced they would be halting their volunteer reserve duty in protest of the government’s effort to radically overhaul the judiciary.
Furthermore, as the government advanced the first major bill of its judicial overhaul late last month, more than 10,000 reservists who frequently show up for duty on a voluntary basis said they would no longer do so. The reservists, some of whom have acted on their warnings, said they would not be able to serve in an undemocratic Israel, which some charge the country will become if the government’s overhaul plans are realized.
Speaking to Israeli Air Force members at the Ramon base on Tuesday, Gallant said the State of Israel depends on the IDF and that “in the face of intensifying threats, the Air Force is a central element in our ability to defend ourselves.”
Members of the corps “are a strategic asset of the State of Israel, enabling the proper functioning of the entire security system — this is why we need them all.”
“The wall that is the Air Force is strong, but small. Every brick that falls undermines the stability of that wall. Therefore, we do not have the privilege of not reporting for missions. The security of the country is greater [in importance] than all of us,” said Gallant, chiding those who have refused to show up.
