IDF Facing Most Serious Crisis in Its History | Commentary

Like in a Greek tragedy, all parties fulfilled the roles they were assigned in the previous acts. The coalition charged full-steam ahead with the legislation, while many reservists declared they will cease volunteering for service, and the calls by the Chief of Staff and the Minister of Defense to keep the IDF above any dispute appeared futile. If there isn’t an almost impossible turn in the plot, the worst is yet to come. Fate is stronger than logic.

All sides, including the IDF, now have an interest in downplaying the crisis. Ignoring the group petitions and focusing solely on counting the number of reservists, including pilots, who have already declared they will no longer report for duty.

At present, the numbers still do not seem terrible, and include a few hundred who have declared their suspension of service, but what did the Chief of Staff and the Minister of Defense say about the situation after their special meeting with the Prime Minister this week?

Ignoring the spins generated by all sides, it is best to face reality: the IDF is in the midst of a perfect storm, the greatest crisis in its history.

The IDF’s strong point, being the people's army, is now its greatest vulnerability. If the IDF were based solely on professional permanent servicemen and women, like the police, the crisis would have been much less severe.

“The people's army” also means dozens of percentages of soldiers who see this legislation, according to polls, as the end of the world. And if it's not them who are rising up, it is their parents or partners.

Refusal to serve is mostly a gray evasion, which cannot be quantified. The current crisis will inevitably have a negative impact on volunteering for officer duty and the willingness to stay on as career officers.

The IDF knows that even if the legislation is halted or somehow passes peacefully, the crisis will remain here for a long time. Maybe forever. The people's army, as we knew it, is over.

And one more thing: the IDF measures not only readiness but also coherence, or “togetherness”. Needless to say, it has suffered a severe blow, and the IDF says so itself.

The long-term implications are still hidden from the eye and the media. Currently, the central focus, and rightfully so, is on the crisis in the Air Force. We'll get to the dynamics that affect the Air Force – but the entire reservist system is turbulent. Decades of joint service have turned the various teams, units, and military affiliations into the ultimate infrastructure for a protest.

The calls of many, including former chiefs of staff Gantz and Eisenkot who are now in the opposition, to keep the IDF out of the protest, were not answered. Protest organizations took shape in every unit, headed, as expected, by the special units.

The Special Operations and Intelligence Cyber Unit, for example, has been carrying out protest activities based on its military skills (we will never know if the computer malfunction on Israel's railway system during the “day of disruption” earlier this week was purely random).

Other prominent protest organizations include also the elite Shaldag unit, the Navy Seals (one of its former commanders, Col. Nevo Erez, made headlines this week when he declared he is suspending his reserve volunteering, but he is not the first among the former commanders to confront Yoav Glant – himself a former Seals commander), and of course the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal).

Several former Matkal commanders laid themselves on the road near the unit's base at Sirkis Junction a few months ago in an attempt to block it, while this week the unit’s current commander struggled with a widespread non-volunteering announcement. How will he deal with his reservists?

Nevertheless, above all, the Air Force. First and foremost, because it is the only military branch whose main operational power is based on reservists, primarily pilots. Their total number is not large, but their operational impact, especially in attack squadrons, is immense.

Few are the ones who operate Israel's strategic arm (at least until the Minister of Information’s proposal to replace them with "missile squadrons" materializes). To maintain their full readiness, reservist pilots are required to report to the squadrons at least once a week. Meaning, if they indeed stop volunteering, the decline in the Air Force's readiness will be rapid and significant.

But with all due respect to the petition of 161 air force members, many of them former pilots, who declared this week that they will stop volunteering – the reservist pilots of the various operational squadrons are the heart of the matter.

The hearts of many of them are broken. This cannot be underestimated. Many are trying to postpone the decision, perhaps hoping for a miracle that the legislation won't pass next Monday. A suspension of flight is a monumental event in the life of any pilot.

The pilots’ WhatsApp groups are exploding. Each squadron has its own group, and each squadron has one representative in the group running the “Pilot’s Protest.”

On Sunday, hundreds of pilots gathered at the offices of Kaltura in Bnei Brak, a company run by Michal Tsur – a former partner of Naftali Bennett in the startup "Siuta," where they made their significant fortunes. The pilots listened to unequivocal lectures delivered by former Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and former Chief of Police Roni Alsheich, who spoke against the legislation. Professor Suzie Navot also spoke at the event.

One of the central topics was the possible compromise of pilots' immunity while traveling abroad, in the case of weakening the Israeli judicial system. The message from the former Air Force Commander, Major General Amir Eshel, was more ambiguous than that of the other speakers.

Eshel pleaded with everyone to act according to their conscience, without explicitly stating anything. Yet, most attendees understood that he was calling to stop volunteering for reserve duty.

Later in the week, additional meetings were held, this time on Zoom, according to the various arrays – combat, helicopters, unmanned aircraft, and so on. Each group and its unique dilemmas. The largest follow-up meeting included 422 participants.

Rightfully so, some of the pilots believe that in the various WhatsApp groups, and definitely during the meetings themselves, only one unified opinion is voiced - against the legislation. Those who want to express a different stance are not allowed to do so. Dr. Aviad Bakshi, the head of the "Kohelet" legal forum, was also blocked from speaking with the pilots.

Either way, the storm has yet to surge. This will happen next week. At the peak of the first reservist protest in March – the Chief of Staff, Air Force Commander, and Minister of Defense were caught unprepared. Minister Gallant was even dismissed following his call to stop the legislation.

Gallant, Chief-of-Staff Halevy, and Air Force Commander Tomer Bar have now anticipated the second wave, which indeed arrived this week. This time, they spoke unequivocally against disobedience – but didn’t sound especially persuasive. Their body language was also not great. Bar also sent an email to all of the squadrons following the aforementioned 161-member petition, informing them that “we are learning this topic.”

Alongside Bar and Halevy are the IDF’s top organizational advisors and psychologists. But they expected a “second wave” and were hit by a tsunami. An umbrella will not suffice.

Moreover, the IDF’s entire top echelon fully understands that any point where this “round” between the military and its reservists will end, will only be the starting point for the next round of non-volunteering (which could come, in the future, from the other side of the political spectrum).

Global Partnership as Usual

Meanwhile, the reservist crisis, the socio-political crisis, and even the diplomatic crisis between the US and Israel, as reflected in the statements and tweets of US President Joe Biden – have not been affecting the special diplomatic relations Israel has with many countries worldwide. Especially not the US, whose National Security Advisor spent a significant part of the week in Israel; or Germany, which recently purchased the “Arrow” defense system. This is just the tip of the iceberg of cross-country cooperation.

The global intelligence partnership has been continuing as usual, as are all other channels of cooperation. But nothing lasts forever. If the words of commentator Thomas Friedman are correct, and the US will indeed hold a "reassessment" of its special relations with Israel – this will have far-reaching implications.

Long before speaking about America’s massive security assistance ($3.8 billion annually) and its commitment to maintain Israel's technological superiority, the US has many ways to pressure Israel, without headlines or grandiose public statements. For example, delays in supplying replacement parts for Air Force aircrafts. Such things are known to have happened.

Fueling an attack

Take a look, for example, at the issue of aerial refueling, which dramatically extends the reach of the Air Force. The Trump administration was the first to approve the sale of eight K-46 refueling aircraft from Boeing and even granted Netanyahu's exceptional request to advance four aircraft designated for Israel to the top of the production line – which included 197 aircrafts for the US itself. Netanyahu had personally briefed on this achievement.

However, the US government never publicly acknowledged that Israel was ahead in line to receive the aircraft, nor that the first tankers will arrive in Israel by 2025. Will this change? Currently, there are no signs of that happening.

The national border police

Amid the intense turmoil on the streets and in the media, the committee appointed by the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is convening intensively to discuss the establishment of a national guard.

Unless there are any surprise developments, the recommendation to the minister will not propose creating a new body but rather transforming the Border Guard into the new national guard, after changing its mission.

Updating this mission is required not only to satisfy the minister's whims, but also because the state has changed beyond recognition since the Border Police was established. Border protection is now just a small part of this body's tasks.

As it seems, the recommendation will propose that the National Guard will also be tasked with combating domestic terrorism and even engaging in protection rackets.

It appears that the recommendation will suggest that the National Guard remains under the authority of the police but will transform from a collection of units always subject to a certain arena, whether military or police, into an independent body with its own authority to build and deploy force.