Where did this reservist get the crazy idea to express a political protest within the military framework?
drag the army to a demonstration.
I'm breaking my head.
To take political signs bearing the inscription "I was also released without deciding", hang them on military vehicles and leave in a convoy from the Tzalim base.
The IDF opened an investigation and the suspension was immediate for six months. His friends, who assisted or participated, were given a command note. A protest within the military service, lest this lead to the destruction of the value of society in Israel and of the IDF, as the people's army."
To be sure, this reserve man did not receive any discount and no pampering.
No military reporter burst into hysterics and said "we need to listen to the voices coming from the field", and no security commentator ruled that "the political echelon should absorb the sense of the developing crisis, before we run out of reserves".
No former security guard appeared in the studio and pleaded to take into account the feelings of the fighter, who felt that the state had violated the contract with him.
The protest of the reservists who left the Gaza Strip, photo: Berashit headquarters
And why would they do that?
The man threatened to refuse to report on the day of the order?
No.
He went on the IDF airwaves and said: "There is no choice but to jeopardize the qualification"? Neither did he. He set up booths in the city squares and invited everyone to come and sign en masse a statement of non-volunteering? No. He drafted petitions of refusal, dispersed among his members in the unit, and then Did he make sure to convey to the media? He reached a critical mass of threatening refusals, until the General Staff forum convenes to discuss damages to the qualification?
No, no and no.
The best for Kaplan
And if this Watabautism sounds familiar to you, it's only because it's tiring.
And the comparison between the extreme leniency of those who threaten to refuse in Kaplan and the turning of the nose in front of the protest of the reserve men from Tzamal, is not intended to demand the same treatment.
It was only meant to indicate that the horses had already run away from the stable.
The demonstrations in Kaplan (archive), photo: Raya Barkan
Just a few months ago, following what was perceived as some great pressure from below that no one bothered to calm, the military attorney's office came out clarifying that soldiers are allowed to participate in demonstrations against the legal reform.
No uniform, of course, but allowed.
As if this is some kind of tsars condition that must be provided to the soldiers. In the very act of issuing the announcement, not only was the assumption that many of them wish to demonstrate, but that the system is tolerant and empathetic to the protesting impulse that exists among the soldiers, and perhaps even looks favorably on it.
Perhaps we should also remember how former members of the military elite in the highest ranks crowded the squares, hosted in the studios, spoke on the bridges and conveyed a clear message: the army, as a social institution, has a central role in leading the resistance to reform.
There were those who envisioned a constitutional colonel revolt and explained how on Judgment Day the generals of the General Staff would have to take command and run the country, or at the very least stop obeying the government altogether.
The reserve camp, photo: Yonatan Zindel/Flash 90
And in all this atmosphere, the refusal industry received a moral boost from former champions, who signed a petition in which they "fully supported the men and women who decided to take action and suspend their volunteering for service in the reserves."
Was it possible to be a soldier, a fighter, an officer, a commander, in this period, without realizing that the IDF has expanded its social roles, and from now on it serves as a gatekeeper of democracy and a lever of pressure on the government? That part of its unwritten duty is to get under the stretcher of the struggle? Should anyone be afraid of the heavy punishment that will be meted out to him if he mobilizes his rank, his military affiliation, his status as a regular, permanent and reserve servant, in favor of the protest? On the contrary, he could expect a tremendous pat on the back and media and social recognition from wall to wall.
And not only the senior military.
The former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet also signed the statement of support for non-voluntariness, and they too crowded the squares, the studios and the demonstrations. "In a constitutional crisis we will be on the right side," the head of the Mossad hinted at the time, according to reports, and also at a special gathering of the organization's people on the subject of the protest. A little earlier, he even announced, just like the military attorney's office, that the members of the organization, with the exception of the senior ones, are allowed to participate in demonstrations and protests.
"Brothers in Arms" protest in Kaplan against the legal reform, photo: Gideon Markovich
the missing hand
Does it matter at all if one of the leaders of the protest met or did not meet one of the senior members of the security establishment?
Isn't it clear that even without meetings, this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship?
The symbiotic, sticky relationship between the protest leaders and the security elite for generations was part of Kaplan's weekly display of purpose.
This is already far beyond the damage caused by the destructive normalization of the refusals;
The deep damage was the terrible politicization of the entire security establishment, and the identification of the military and security elite in Israel as a political actor.
And worst of all, really, really worst of all: turning the protest into a sort of unwritten holy mission;
A missing hand caresses the face of a soldier enlisting to fight against the government and gives him the "Battle Badge for Democracy".
And now the top of the army and the security commentary stands shocked, stunned in front of the jeep protest, and can't believe: how is it that one soldier dares?
It's as if they forgot, or never counted, the multitudes of fighters, regular and reserve, who simply did not sympathize with the Kaplan demonstrations, and who did not show up to salute the order of the day of Ehud Barak, Yair Golan, Moshe Ya'alon, Amos Yadlin, Dan Halutz, and all the rest.
Amazingly, really amazingly, these warriors keep their composure even now, even though it's their turn to agitate, to resent, to protest.
Indeed, it is not okay to hang a protest sign on a military Hummer.
But to their credit: they first came forward, and only then, if at all, did they speak.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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