Date Posted: Friday, September 26, 2003

A group of 27 reserve and active Israeli pilots have refured to carry out missions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

JERUSALEM, Sept 26 (MASNET & News Agencies) - Israel's air force Thursday grounded seven pilots who refused to take part in missions in the Palestinian territories, with their commander accusing them of stabbing their country in the back, a military source said.

On Wednesday, 27 reserve pilots submitted a petition to air force commander Dan Halutz, saying they were no longer prepared to take part in missions they regarded as "illegal and immoral".

"We, who were taught to love Israel and contribute to the Zionist enterprise, refuse to take part in attacks on civilian population centers," the pilots wrote in the letter.

The military spokesman said Thursday that 20 of the signatories were no longer even attached to units flying such missions, but that they were to be grounded anyway, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The group is informally led by Brigadier General Yiftah Spector, a highly decorated retired pilot who, according to Israeli media reports, participated in the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Halutz replied to the pilots in a harsh letter in which he accused them of having "shoved a knife in the back of combatants and of Israeli democracy," the source said.

Halutz was quoted in the Haaretz daily earlier Thursday as saying he planned to treat the signatories "in the same way as the IDF [military] has dealt with refuseniks until now," indicating that they would be dismissed, but that they would be given a chance to retract their statement.

Refuseniks are a small active group of conscientious objectors, whose campaign has been overshadowed by the daily bloodshed, reports Reuters news agency.

Both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been hardened by violence that has included air attacks on militia members in which Palestinian civilians have died and dozens of bombings in Israeli cities.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said the pilots appeared to have an alternative political agenda, referring to their accusation that occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip had "corrupted Israeli society."

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also warned the pilots not to become embroiled in politics.

"Everyone has the right to voice their opinion, but it is unacceptable that a group of military men interfere in such a issue, an issue decided on by the political echelon after great deliberation," he told Israel TV.

"The army carries out the instructions of the political echelon, and it will continue to act against terrorists and murderers whose sole purpose is to strike at crowded population centers inhabited by innocent citizens," said Sharon.

"This is a very severe matter, which will be dealt with soon and appropriately."

One of the pilots, whose name was given as Alon, told the Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest newspaper, that he felt like he had "come out against his family".

"I was proud to belong to the organization called the Israel air force, and today I am ashamed," said the Blackhawk helicopter captain.

"This is an organization that carries out actions that in my eyes are immoral and patently illegal. It is an organization that has no qualms about dropping bombs - it doesn't matter if they are 250, 500 or 1,000 kilos [550, 1,100 or 2,200 pounds] - on the densest neighborhoods in the world, causing massive killing of civilians."

Israel drew international condemnation last year when 16 civilians died after an F-16 warplane dropped a one-ton bomb on a residential neighborhood in Gaza City to kill Salah Shehada, a top Hamas commander, reports Reuters.

And an F-15 pilot who signed the letter, identified only as Captain Alef, told Israel's Channel Two television: "If dropping a bomb on a seven-story building only to find out 14 innocent civilians were killed, of them nine children and two women, if that is not an illegal order, then what is?"

Another captain, whose name was given only as Yonathan, said: "Does it matter to so many civilians who were killed for no wrongdoing of their own, if the pilot meant to carry out a mission that someone told him is important for the defense of the State of Israel?"

Alon said he would be prepared to fly missions which carried the possibility of killing civilians if he felt it was vital to the state's survival.

"This is not the situation in Israel 2003. We are not in a war for our existence," he said.

"We are in a war for continuing the occupation in the territories. And in light of this dubious goal, I am not willing to be the murderer of innocent civilians."

In the past three years, some 140 Palestinian militia members have been killed in targeted assassinations, widely referred to in Hebrew as "liquidations", not all of them airstrikes, though the figure also includes those killed resisting arrest. More than 100 bystanders have also died, according to Palestinian medical officials, reports the AP.

The pilots’ action has left some commentators to speculate whether other soldiers might follow suit in opposing the way the military confronts the Palestinian uprising. Pilots are held in the highest regard in Israel and their views carry considerable weight, since their skill and audacity are seen as key to the country's survival, reports the AP and Reuters.

"Today, in light of pointless military operations ... people are beginning to ask questions," wrote military commentator Alex Fishman in Yediot Ahronot. "And these [the pilots] are the very best people we have. We can ground them, and we can lock them up, but we cannot ignore the questions they ask."

Former air force commander Major General Amos Lapidot said that while the pilots were in a minority their unease was widely shared. "It's a minority but it's not just limited to those 27," he told AFP. "Others feel this in their stomach."

The letter of protest marked the first time pilots have come out openly against air force policy. In the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, some pilots expressed reservations about bombing cities and refugee camps, but did not go public, reports the AP.

Major General Nati Sharoni, the military's former head of planning, said the pilots had no right to air their grievances in such an open way.

"Much of what they say, I can identify with myself but this is not the way to do it," Sharoni told AFP.

"Anyone who serves in the armed forces, whether active or reserve, cannot, should not, must not say this is something that I am not going to do, even if it's questionable.

"One has to realize that this is not a democratic organization."

The pilots should have voiced their misgivings to other officers but could only justify their actions if they were given patently illegal orders such as being instructed "to slaughter kids".

Yael Paz-Melamed, a columnist for the Maariv daily, said the writing had been on the wall for a long time.

"In private conversations, more and more pilots voiced their disgruntlement with the assassination missions they were sent on," he wrote.

"From the F-16 jet, one does not see the white in the victims' eyes. One cannot hear the outcries, the pain, the wails of the wounded. One does not see the children bleeding to death. But people who do not turn their back on their conscience, know that this is not the reason that they joined the Air Force."

The pilots’ action to refuse missions into the Occupied Territories was the highest-profile act of defiance by members of the armed forces since the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when a tank brigade commander resigned rather than invade Beirut, after saying he saw children through his field glasses.