Dennis G
09-26-2003, 04:19 PM
a good read.
Israeli pilots refuse missions in Palestinian territories: TV
Wed Sep 24, 3:33 PM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Twenty-seven Israeli air force pilots said they had refused to carry out missions over the Palestinian territories, Israeli radio reported.
The pilots, believed to be regulars and reservists, recently submitted a petition opposing the missions to air force head General Dan Haloutz, the radio said, but gave no further details.
In their petition, thought to be the first signed by Israeli air force personnel, the pilots refused "to continue to endanger innocent civilians and to attack densely populated areas," the radio said.
Israel recently declared "total war" on the Palestinian militant group Hamas following a wave of attacks it claimed to have carried out, and has continued with its policy of "targeted killings" of extremist leaders.
These killings, which have been denounced by the international community, are usually carried out by air force personnel in helicopters and occasionally jet aircraft and often cause civilian casualties.
Talking to Israeli public television, Haloutz tried to play down the dissent. "We are talking about 27 pilots among several thousand." he said.
"We are involved in a war against a cruel terrorism. We don't choose our missions or the wars and political objections are no reason to justify not carrying out these missions," he said.
"The fact that they (terrorists) are hiding behind civilians, women and children, is no guarantee for them that we will stop fighting," he added. "We are the most moral army that I know of."
On January 25, 2002, 52 army reserve officers and soldiers said they were refusing to serve in the Palestinian territories, but the air force had remained untouched by the protests.
Around 190,000 men and women are on active service in the Israeli air force with a further 450,000 on standby as reserves, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Tel Aviv.
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20030924/capt.sge.inn36.240903193231.photo00.default-372x275.jpg
Israeli Pilots Refuse to Serve in West Bank, Gaza
Wed Sep 24, 3:25 PM ET Add World - ******* to My Yahoo!
JERUSALEM (*******) - Twenty-seven Israeli pilots said on Wednesday they would refuse to carry out operations in the Palestinian territories, an Israeli air force officer said.
******* Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Mideast Conflict
The pilots sent a letter to the Israeli air force commander declaring their refusal to carry out duties, which include track-and-kill operations, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (news - web sites).
A security source earlier said the pilots numbered 25.
"We, veteran pilots and active pilots alike...are opposed to carrying out illegal and immoral attacks, of the type carried out by Israel in the territories," one of the pilots told Israel's Channel 2.
"We, who have been educated to love the state of Israel...refuse to take part in air force attacks in civilian population centers. We...refuse to continue harming innocent civilians," one of the pilots told Israel's Channel 2.
It was unclear how many of the pilots were still active in the air force, but Israeli reserve pilots can be called upon to fly missions.
Brigadier General Ido Nehushtan of the Israeli air force told ******* the 27 pilots were a "marginal, small group" of retired and reserve pilots.
Israel's army chief, Moshe Ya'alon, said the pilots, who include senior reserve officers in the air force, could be punished for their "illegitimate" and "forbidden" statement.
"If we'll need to take steps (against them), we'll take them...We have to examine the matter," he told Channel 2.
Israel has killed 12 Hamas militants in air strikes in the Gaza Strip since a Hamas suicide bombing killed 23 people in Jerusalem on August 19.
Several bystanders have also been killed in the targeted missile attacks, which Israel has used to assassinate top Palestinian leaders from the militant group.
Israel has an active group of conscientious objectors who have refused to serve in Palestinian territories, but the letter marks the first time that pilots protested in a separate group.
Israeli servicemen can be jailed for refusing to carry out orders.
Israelis Refuse to Carry Out Airstrikes
Thu Sep 25, 9:57 AM ET
By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - A group of reserve air force pilots drew condemnation Thursday for refusing to carry out airstrikes in Palestinian areas, but their unprecedented protest set off an emotional debate on the ethics of the targeted killings of militants.
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Mideast Conflict
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.
Several hundred Israelis have refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza in recent years, and there have been protests such as last weekend's Tel Aviv rally in which several thousand called for ending the occupation of the areas. But Israelis generally support the military's actions as needed to curb terror attacks, and no major anti-war movement has emerged.
Wednesday's signed declaration condemning the airstrikes shook the nation and also raised new questions about the limits of protest in the military. The air force commander, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, said the signatories would be punished — possibly jailed — and accused them of playing politics rather than grappling with genuine moral dilemmas.
The group of 27 is informally led by Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector, a highly decorated retired pilot who, according to Israeli media reports, participated in the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.
Nine of the pilots are still on active duty.
In their petition, the pilots said airstrikes on crowded Palestinian areas are "illegal and immoral." They also condemn Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, saying it corrupts Israeli society.
In the past three years of fighting, Israeli pilots have carried out hundreds of airstrikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), targeting Palestinian police installations and weapons workshops of militants.
The most controversial of the airstrikes involve targeted killings, in which helicopters — and sometimes warplanes — fire rockets and bombs at cars and homes of Palestinian militants.
In the past three years, some 140 wanted men have been killed in targeted raids, not all of them airstrikes, according to Palestinian medical officials, though the figure also includes those killed resisting arrest. More than 100 bystanders have also died, according to the medical officials.
The Israeli public, traumatized by a Palestinian suicide bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of civilians since September 2000, largely supports the army's tough measures, including the targeted killings, widely referred to in Hebrew as "liquidations."
The rebel pilots were lambasted Thursday in commentary in newspapers and radio talk shows. Critics accused the pilots of being immature, naive or having a secret political agenda.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) was quoted as saying the protest was a "grave matter" and would be dealt with swiftly. Former Israeli President Ezer Weizman, who commanded the air force in the 1960s, said the pilots' stance was immoral, and belittled their apparent idealism as a "holier-than-thou attitude."
Veteran journalist Dan Margalit wrote in a front-page commentary in the Maariv daily that the pilots abused their exalted standing.
"If their idea is accepted, Ahmed Yassin and his compatriots in the Hamas leadership will be able to plan the next murder of Jewish children on a Jerusalem bus without interference," Margalit wrote in a reference to a mid-August bus bombing by Hamas that killed 23 bus passengers, six of them children.
In response to that bombing, Israel accelerated its targeted attacks, killing 13 Hamas members and six bystanders in nearly a dozen airstrikes in Gaza City. Yassin, the Hamas founder and spiritual leader, himself survived an attack earlier this month.
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.
Halutz, the air force commander, played down the importance of the protest, saying the pilots were only a handful among thousands.
"Refusal shouldn't be an issue in our army, especially not if we didn't ask these people to do anything immoral or illegal as they said in the letter," Halutz said.
However, some warned the protest could spread because of growing unease in the armed forces over military strikes that have failed to stop terror attacks.
"Today, in light of pointless military operations ... people are beginning to ask questions," wrote military commentator Alex Fishman in the Yediot Ahronot daily. "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."
Col. Uri Dromi, another air force reservist, added that "when the time comes, say, to remove settlers from their homes, other people in the army or in the air force will say they don't want to obey these orders in the same way."
"So once you start this, there is an erosion of the rule of law here of the whole democratic elements of the regime, and this is the end of the democratic structure in Israel," Dromi said.
Yediot said dozens of Apache helicopter pilots, who carry out the bulk of the airstrikes, have met with their wing commander to express their concerns. One participant said he was not convinced of the justice of his missions, Yediot said, and others complained that they were given bad intelligence that could endanger civilians.
The rebel pilots could not be reached for comment Thursday, but Lt. Col. Zeev Rotem, a retired combat navigator speaking on their behalf, said the norms of the air force have changed in recent years.
"Today, we attack places where there are civilians, women and children, with the prior knowledge that ... there is a great chance they will be killed," Rotem told Israel Radio. The protest, he said, is a desperate attempt "to make the army, the government and the citizens ... stop this crazy cycle that has hijacked this country."
A watershed, for some pilots, apparently was last year's attack on Salah Shehadeh, leader of the Hamas military wing. A one-ton bomb killed Shehadeh, an assistant and also 14 civilians, nine of them children.
Halutz said at the time that he felt the bombing was morally correct.
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030925/capt.jrl80209250819.mideast_israel_pilots_protest_jrl802.jpg
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030925/capt.jrl80609251441.mideast_israel_pilots_protest_jrl806.jpg
Israeli pilots refuse missions in Palestinian territories: TV
Wed Sep 24, 3:33 PM ET Add Mideast - AFP to My Yahoo!
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Twenty-seven Israeli air force pilots said they had refused to carry out missions over the Palestinian territories, Israeli radio reported.
The pilots, believed to be regulars and reservists, recently submitted a petition opposing the missions to air force head General Dan Haloutz, the radio said, but gave no further details.
In their petition, thought to be the first signed by Israeli air force personnel, the pilots refused "to continue to endanger innocent civilians and to attack densely populated areas," the radio said.
Israel recently declared "total war" on the Palestinian militant group Hamas following a wave of attacks it claimed to have carried out, and has continued with its policy of "targeted killings" of extremist leaders.
These killings, which have been denounced by the international community, are usually carried out by air force personnel in helicopters and occasionally jet aircraft and often cause civilian casualties.
Talking to Israeli public television, Haloutz tried to play down the dissent. "We are talking about 27 pilots among several thousand." he said.
"We are involved in a war against a cruel terrorism. We don't choose our missions or the wars and political objections are no reason to justify not carrying out these missions," he said.
"The fact that they (terrorists) are hiding behind civilians, women and children, is no guarantee for them that we will stop fighting," he added. "We are the most moral army that I know of."
On January 25, 2002, 52 army reserve officers and soldiers said they were refusing to serve in the Palestinian territories, but the air force had remained untouched by the protests.
Around 190,000 men and women are on active service in the Israeli air force with a further 450,000 on standby as reserves, according to the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Tel Aviv.
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/afp/20030924/capt.sge.inn36.240903193231.photo00.default-372x275.jpg
Israeli Pilots Refuse to Serve in West Bank, Gaza
Wed Sep 24, 3:25 PM ET Add World - ******* to My Yahoo!
JERUSALEM (*******) - Twenty-seven Israeli pilots said on Wednesday they would refuse to carry out operations in the Palestinian territories, an Israeli air force officer said.
******* Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Mideast Conflict
The pilots sent a letter to the Israeli air force commander declaring their refusal to carry out duties, which include track-and-kill operations, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (news - web sites).
A security source earlier said the pilots numbered 25.
"We, veteran pilots and active pilots alike...are opposed to carrying out illegal and immoral attacks, of the type carried out by Israel in the territories," one of the pilots told Israel's Channel 2.
"We, who have been educated to love the state of Israel...refuse to take part in air force attacks in civilian population centers. We...refuse to continue harming innocent civilians," one of the pilots told Israel's Channel 2.
It was unclear how many of the pilots were still active in the air force, but Israeli reserve pilots can be called upon to fly missions.
Brigadier General Ido Nehushtan of the Israeli air force told ******* the 27 pilots were a "marginal, small group" of retired and reserve pilots.
Israel's army chief, Moshe Ya'alon, said the pilots, who include senior reserve officers in the air force, could be punished for their "illegitimate" and "forbidden" statement.
"If we'll need to take steps (against them), we'll take them...We have to examine the matter," he told Channel 2.
Israel has killed 12 Hamas militants in air strikes in the Gaza Strip since a Hamas suicide bombing killed 23 people in Jerusalem on August 19.
Several bystanders have also been killed in the targeted missile attacks, which Israel has used to assassinate top Palestinian leaders from the militant group.
Israel has an active group of conscientious objectors who have refused to serve in Palestinian territories, but the letter marks the first time that pilots protested in a separate group.
Israeli servicemen can be jailed for refusing to carry out orders.
Israelis Refuse to Carry Out Airstrikes
Thu Sep 25, 9:57 AM ET
By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - A group of reserve air force pilots drew condemnation Thursday for refusing to carry out airstrikes in Palestinian areas, but their unprecedented protest set off an emotional debate on the ethics of the targeted killings of militants.
AP Photo
AFP
Slideshow: Mideast Conflict
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.
Several hundred Israelis have refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza in recent years, and there have been protests such as last weekend's Tel Aviv rally in which several thousand called for ending the occupation of the areas. But Israelis generally support the military's actions as needed to curb terror attacks, and no major anti-war movement has emerged.
Wednesday's signed declaration condemning the airstrikes shook the nation and also raised new questions about the limits of protest in the military. The air force commander, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, said the signatories would be punished — possibly jailed — and accused them of playing politics rather than grappling with genuine moral dilemmas.
The group of 27 is informally led by Brig. Gen. Yiftah Spector, a highly decorated retired pilot who, according to Israeli media reports, participated in the bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.
Nine of the pilots are still on active duty.
In their petition, the pilots said airstrikes on crowded Palestinian areas are "illegal and immoral." They also condemn Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, saying it corrupts Israeli society.
In the past three years of fighting, Israeli pilots have carried out hundreds of airstrikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites), targeting Palestinian police installations and weapons workshops of militants.
The most controversial of the airstrikes involve targeted killings, in which helicopters — and sometimes warplanes — fire rockets and bombs at cars and homes of Palestinian militants.
In the past three years, some 140 wanted men have been killed in targeted raids, not all of them airstrikes, according to Palestinian medical officials, though the figure also includes those killed resisting arrest. More than 100 bystanders have also died, according to the medical officials.
The Israeli public, traumatized by a Palestinian suicide bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of civilians since September 2000, largely supports the army's tough measures, including the targeted killings, widely referred to in Hebrew as "liquidations."
The rebel pilots were lambasted Thursday in commentary in newspapers and radio talk shows. Critics accused the pilots of being immature, naive or having a secret political agenda.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) was quoted as saying the protest was a "grave matter" and would be dealt with swiftly. Former Israeli President Ezer Weizman, who commanded the air force in the 1960s, said the pilots' stance was immoral, and belittled their apparent idealism as a "holier-than-thou attitude."
Veteran journalist Dan Margalit wrote in a front-page commentary in the Maariv daily that the pilots abused their exalted standing.
"If their idea is accepted, Ahmed Yassin and his compatriots in the Hamas leadership will be able to plan the next murder of Jewish children on a Jerusalem bus without interference," Margalit wrote in a reference to a mid-August bus bombing by Hamas that killed 23 bus passengers, six of them children.
In response to that bombing, Israel accelerated its targeted attacks, killing 13 Hamas members and six bystanders in nearly a dozen airstrikes in Gaza City. Yassin, the Hamas founder and spiritual leader, himself survived an attack earlier this month.
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.
Halutz, the air force commander, played down the importance of the protest, saying the pilots were only a handful among thousands.
"Refusal shouldn't be an issue in our army, especially not if we didn't ask these people to do anything immoral or illegal as they said in the letter," Halutz said.
However, some warned the protest could spread because of growing unease in the armed forces over military strikes that have failed to stop terror attacks.
"Today, in light of pointless military operations ... people are beginning to ask questions," wrote military commentator Alex Fishman in the Yediot Ahronot daily. "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."
Col. Uri Dromi, another air force reservist, added that "when the time comes, say, to remove settlers from their homes, other people in the army or in the air force will say they don't want to obey these orders in the same way."
"So once you start this, there is an erosion of the rule of law here of the whole democratic elements of the regime, and this is the end of the democratic structure in Israel," Dromi said.
Yediot said dozens of Apache helicopter pilots, who carry out the bulk of the airstrikes, have met with their wing commander to express their concerns. One participant said he was not convinced of the justice of his missions, Yediot said, and others complained that they were given bad intelligence that could endanger civilians.
The rebel pilots could not be reached for comment Thursday, but Lt. Col. Zeev Rotem, a retired combat navigator speaking on their behalf, said the norms of the air force have changed in recent years.
"Today, we attack places where there are civilians, women and children, with the prior knowledge that ... there is a great chance they will be killed," Rotem told Israel Radio. The protest, he said, is a desperate attempt "to make the army, the government and the citizens ... stop this crazy cycle that has hijacked this country."
A watershed, for some pilots, apparently was last year's attack on Salah Shehadeh, leader of the Hamas military wing. A one-ton bomb killed Shehadeh, an assistant and also 14 civilians, nine of them children.
Halutz said at the time that he felt the bombing was morally correct.
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030925/capt.jrl80209250819.mideast_israel_pilots_protest_jrl802.jpg
http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20030925/capt.jrl80609251441.mideast_israel_pilots_protest_jrl806.jpg