The pilots bomb as they have never bombed before, the drone operators kill by remote control in wholesale quantities never known before, the artillerymen shell more than ever, the heavy engineering-equipment operators destroy as they have never destroyed before, and even the prison guards abuse prisoners as they’ve never abused before – and nobody stood up.
Palestinians gather to get their share of charity food offered by volunteers, amid food shortages in the southern Gaza Strip, last month.Credit: IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA/ REUTERS
Among the hundreds of thousands of reserve and career officers – let’s leave the regular soldiers alone due to their age, status and being brainwashed – there’s not even one soldier or officer, pilot or artilleryman, paratrooper or Golani trooper who has said: That’s far enough. I’m not ready to continue taking part in the slaughter, not ready to be partner to causing the inhuman suffering. Nor has one prison guard stood up to tell the truth about what’s happening between Sde Teiman and Megiddo security prisons, and lay the handcuffs on the table.
On the face of it, the IDF should be pleased with a wholly consensual war, with no background noises. But the total lack of disobedience should raise dire thoughts; it points to automatic obedience rather than to good citizenship. Such a brutal war that hasn’t yet raised doubts among the combatants reflects moral blindness. The pilots and drone operators are one thing, they see their victims as tiny dots on a screen. But the soldiers and officers in Gaza see what we have done. Most of them are reservists, parents to children.
Displaced Palestinians shelter in a tent camp in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on Friday.Credit: Shadi Tabatibi/Reuters
They see more than a million people bereft of everything crowding together in Rafah. They see the bodies in the streets, the remnants of life in the ruins, the children’s dolls and their beds, the tattered rags and the broken furniture. Do all the soldiers think Hamas is to blame, that all Gaza is Hamas, that they deserve all this, and that this will benefit Israel?
The absence of insubordination is even clearer in view of what happened here last year prior to October 7. Disobedience became a more legitimate and common weapon than ever before; thousands of pilots and reservists threatened to use it.
In July the Brothers in Arms movement announced that about 10,000 reserve soldiers from 40 units wouldn’t volunteer for reserve duty if the regime coup passed. They joined the 180 pilots and navigators who stated already in March that they wouldn’t report to training drills, along with 300 military doctors and 650 reserve soldiers from special ops and cyber. With so many people threatening disobedience, its complete absence now is especially thunderous.
Brothers and Sisters in Arms protesters in the Hemed intersection in July, 2023Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
The conclusion is that many of the career and reserve soldiers are convinced the regime coup was a just and proper cause for insubordination, in contrast to the bloodshed and destruction in Gaza. The army is trashing an entire region along with its residents, and that doesn’t bother our forces’ consciences. The reasonableness clause bothered some of them more. Where are those 10,000 soldiers who threatened disobedience because of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yariv Levin now? Where are the 180 pilots?
They’re busy bombing Gaza, flattening it, destroying it and killing its residents indiscriminately, including its thousands of children. How did it happen that bombing Salah Shehadeh’s house, which killed 14 residents, 11 of them children, led to the “pilots’ letter,” in which 27 pilots stated they would refuse to serve on attack missions – and now, not even a postcard from a single pilot? What happened to our pilots since 2003, and what happened to the soldiers?
The city of Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza, last month.Credit: Mohammed Salem/Reuters
The answer is seemingly clear. Israel says that after the October 7 horror it’s allowed to do anything, and anything it does is worthy, moral and legal. Insubordination during war is also a much more drastic step than insubordination in training, and indeed it borders on treason. It could hurt the brothers in combat. But the total absence of disobedience after some 90 days of evil warfare is not something to be happy about. It is not good. Maybe in a few years, some people will regret it. Maybe some will be ashamed of it.
Gideon Levy