Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, commander of the Israeli Air Force, announced the dismissal on Wednesday of every active IAF reservist who signed an open letter that called for the public to rise up and demand an immediate cessation to the current war against Hamas.
As it turned out, the IDF said that only 10% of the letter’s 950 signatories are active reservists. The rest are retired.
The IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, supported Bar’s decision. The military said in a statement that it “cannot accept a situation in which active soldiers sign a letter expressing distrust in the IDF.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also backed Bar’s move. In a statement on Thursday, the Prime Minister’s Office said: “Refusal to serve is refusal to serve—even if it is implied and in polite language. Expressions that weaken the IDF and strengthen our enemies in wartime are unforgiveable.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz also expressed outrage at the letter, saying it was an attempt to undermine Israel’s “just war” to both bring home the hostages and defeat Hamas.
The letter, published in Israeli media outlets on Wednesday, demands the return of the hostages held in Gaza—an estimated 59 remain, of whom 24 are believed to remain alive—”even at the cost of an immediate cessation of hostilities.”
The letter accuses the government of pursuing the war for “mainly political and personal interests.”
It rejects the government’s view that military pressure will help free the hostages, arguing the reverse; that it will only lead to the death of more hostages and soldiers.
“We call on all citizens of Israel to mobilize in action, to demand everywhere and in every way: Stop the fighting and return all the abductees—now,” it said.
IDF Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi leads the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), which represents thousands of IDF reserve officers. He told JNS on Thursday, “This letter is a disgrace. These former pilots care more about their politics than winning the war and securing Israel.
“The government and all security organizations are working relentlessly to bring back the hostages, understanding that only military pressure can bring Hamas to agree to release them,” Avivi added.
“The Israeli Reservists—Generation of Victory,” a group formed one month after the start of the war, which says it also represents thousands of reservists, similarly condemned the letter.
The group called for the government and the army to strip the pensions of those commanders who signed it. “This will send a clear message to those trying to drag us back to an era of insubordination and politicization in the IDF,” a spokesman for the group told JNS.
“The plague of refusing to serve must be uprooted immediately. It is time for serious consequences against those who repeatedly attempt to dismantle Israeli society and the IDF,” he said.
The letter’s organizers denied that they were calling for a refusal to serve. One told Ynet, “The document does not talk about refusal or failure to report and is not addressed to the army at all. It is a clear call to the government: Return the hostages, even at the cost of stopping the fighting.”
The Prime Minister’s Office, however, described the letter’s organizers as “a marginal and extremist group” seeking to “break Israeli society from within,” as they had tried to do with the 2023 judicial reform protests.
Many, if not all, of the most prominent names on the letter were of those active in the anti-judicial reform effort, including former IDF and IAF chief Lt. Gen. (res.) Dan Halutz, former IAF commanders Maj. Gens. (res.) Eliezer Shkedy and Ido Nehushtan, former IAF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Nimrod Sheffer, Maj. Gen. (res.) Gil Regev, Brig. Gen. (res.) Assaf Agmon and Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Haskel.
Bar met with several of the above generals in an attempt to convince them to forgo publishing the letter. Zamir joined the meeting to lend Bar support.
Senior IAF commanders also contacted individual signatories by phone to alert them that they would be dismissed from service if they did not remove their names from the letter.
Some two dozen were convinced to do so, according to the IDF, though Haaretz reported that at least eight others signed onto the letter precisely because of the IDF threat.