We are experiencing a renewed flourishing of the noble genre, a real cornerstone of democratic culture: the vast. It began with a professors 'letter, continued with a letter from senior officials, and yesterday it came in the format of a pilots' letter, to be precise: 540 former air crew fighters, like their predecessors, require Knesset members and the president not to grant the government's mandate to Netanyahu if he wins the election. The three letters, incidentally, come from the same creator and even share a common logo. Coordinated PR venture.

Stylistically, at least, this should be reminiscent of the tradition of petitions and open letters that have led eminent intellectuals. From Emile Zola to Jean-Paul Sartre, the public protest by the public gave the weak and expressed universal values ​​of justice and rights against injustices and power.

But the medium is not always the message. The three open letters try to enjoy the prestige associated with the historical brand and intellectual tradition, but the timing, the issue and especially the identity of the writers - betray the motivation. They do not respond to a value crisis that requires a moral wake-up call. On the contrary, in a week, Israeli citizens will vote precisely on the issue in question, and it will be brought to a democratic decision. What more could you ask for?

Letter-signers do not appeal to public opinion, but directly to the decision-makers with a strange request, something outrageous, which does not obey the election results and does not respect the will of the voter. Not only do they urge Knesset members to ignore a democratic decision, they also raise their social status as a basis for argument. Because the formal reasoning ("No situation accused of government corruption will receive a mandate") is well-known and trite, which gives these letters their weight is the prestige of the signatories - not the argument.

This is the other side of the ad hominem argument: If a person's argument is not proper, it is not fair enough to impose an argument based on the speaker's status. But it is precisely the ethical flaw in these letters, which in fact require consideration of those who are considered or perceived by themselves to be more deserving, more competent, more virtuous than the ignorant masses who will speak their minds in the election. They want to prioritize democracy or over-privilege in the ballot box; They may be allowed to cast two or three ballots, and for the common people more than one ballot, or half.

They stress that they are not partisan. These are not "left letters," and the signers express varied political views. Possibly. But the signers' self-concept, as an elite group, paints the letters with a lush, if not narcissistic, tone. Two weeks to the election, and they are already challenging the judgment of the ravenous mob. Is there blatant anti-democratic elitism?

The pilots' letter has another aroma: an academic or business elite has made an affidavit of a confrontation with a chosen government, but when a military elite deals with the tattooing of the political echelon, democracy is in danger. Beyond eliciting a sense of "elite rebellion," a military elite's vote for a political leader as illegitimate means condoning the loyalty of the IDF to the government.