The IDF Spokesman’s Office on Saturday denied reports that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi had told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the army would lose its readiness to maintain national security within 48 hours, due to reservists’ protest against the repeal of the judiciary’s reasonableness clause.
The denied leak came shortly after groups leading the call for reservists to quit the IDF announced that 10,000 reservists were joining their cause and 1,194 air force reservists, including a growing number of fighter pilots.
The IDF also said Halevi would keep his communications to “the political echelon” – Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – secret and not share them with the public out of national security concerns.
The statement certainly did not reassure the public about how long the IDF could maintain its readiness with the growing wave of pledges to step down, and The Jerusalem Post understands that no such statement will be released on Saturday night, although the IDF had been issuing reassuring messages until the middle of last week.
Halevi was expected to meet with Netanyahu and Gallant to provide them with additional updates on Sunday, but the IDF would not formally confirm the meetings.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday, May 31, 2023 (Credit: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)
On Thursday, the head of the Air Force, Major General. Tomer Bar issued a statement making it clear that the IDF was approaching a tipping point where the damage to IDF readiness would become real, though he also avoided giving a specific timeline.
Former defense chiefs support reservists
In addition to IDF and Air Force reservists specifically, a letter from former security chiefs to Netanyahu was released on Saturday blaming him for the crisis and asking him to reverse course.
Five former Mossad chiefs, three former IDF chiefs, three former Shin Bet chiefs, including the most recent chief Nadav Argaman, former police commissioners and dozens of other top officials signed the letter.
In the letter, they said that “the Israeli government under your leadership is promoting legislative moves while completely ignoring the damage to Israeli democracy. The legislation is crushing the things that Israeli society shares, it is tearing apart the people, disintegrating the IDF and dealing fatal blows to Israel’s security.
“The legislative process violates the social contract that has existed for 75 years between the Israeli government and thousands of officers and reservists of the land, air, sea and intelligence branches who have volunteered for many years in the reserves to defend the democratic State of Israel, and who now announce with broken hearts that they will suspend their voluntary service.”
They further stated: “We reserve generals, police commanders, department heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, we stand with them and fully support the fighters who have decided to act and suspend their voluntary service in the reserves. At this difficult time, this is an act of national responsibility, for the defense of Israeli democracy.
“We give you full responsibility for damaging the IDF and Israel’s security and we expect you to take responsibility, to stop the legislation. We expect you to lead a dialogue process and accept amendments that will have broad consensus among the people and the Knesset.
“We, the veterans of Israel’s wars, feel like ‘the eve of the Yom Kippur war’ and are showing you and your government a bright red ‘stop’ sign.”
Former defense chiefs
The letter was not signed by the most recent head of the IDF, Aviv Kohavi, or the most recent head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen. Kohavi has refused to comment on ongoing public events since he resigned in January so as not to harm Halevi’s tenure.
Cohen participated in a letter in early 2023 against Netanyahu’s previous judicial review process along with a dozen former national security advisers, but this time he has remained silent.
