Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Tomer Bar warned on Sunday that reserve IDF pilots who don’t show up for duty due to the government’s advancement of judicial reform legislation will be dismissed from their squadrons.

Speaking to senior Air Force officers at a closed conference, Bar said: “Anyone who is not interested in volunteering or serving in the reserves will simply not be here and in my opinion, there is no difference between training and operational activity. We need to rid the IDF and Air Force of politics.”

Bar’s comments signify a change of attitude in the Air Force and presumably the entire IDF against reserve officers, including hundreds of pilots and officers from special forces, who announced that they will no longer serve in the reserves if the judicial reform is approved.

In practice, only a few dozen pilots failed to show up for training in recent weeks but many others informed their commanders that they wouldn’t fly “under a dictatorship.”

In response to a query, an IDF spokesperson said: “We will not comment on what is said in closed forums. In recent weeks, all the commanders of the IDF held talks with their subordinates, with the aim of strengthening the IDF’s cohesion and maintaining its competence.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)