Defense minister wants to postpone vote on ‘reasonableness’ bill, coalition furious

Gallant wants more negotiations to soften the bill due to reservists’ threat not to serve, ignoring media reports that many more reservists won’t mix IDF service with politics.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to postpone the scheduled vote for Monday on the judicial reform’s “reasonableness” clause – against the wishes of the majority of the coalition that reacted with fury.

Channel 12 reported Friday night that one of his suggestions was to extend the Knesset’s summer session past July 31 in order to allow more time for negotiations.

Behind closed doors, according to the report, government members are saying that Gallant “is no longer right-wing.” They are adamant that at least this one piece of the proposed reforms must pass this week and are threatening to get him fired if he doesn’t fall in line and vote for the bill.

Gallant is worried, the report said, over the threats made by thousands reservists who said they would suspend their volunteer service due to their opposition to the reform, and he expressed his concerns to IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and Air Force Commander Maj.-Gen. Tomer Bar.

Gallant’s office confirmed his concern, responding to the report by stating that he is working “in every way to achieve broad consensus, to prevent harming Israel’s security and to keep the IDF outside of the political debate.”

Anti-reform leaders have announced that the number of refusers has reached over 10,000. Included among them are those ostensibly serving in elite positions, such as the air force, intelligence and special forces.

While most of Israeli media has focused on these kinds of announcements, the IDF has said that among those whose names were actually published, many were older and no longer in the active reserves.

In another pushback, commentator David Weinberg reported in the weekend edition of The Jerusalem Post that “well over 100,000 Israeli active duty and reserve military personnel are on record as rejecting the calls to refuse to serve.” Furthermore, 150 “very senior IDF military intelligence reserve officers” publicly issued a call to leave the IDF out of politics and respond positively to a reserve duty notice. Hundreds of reservists in each of the country’s most elite combat units have joined that call as well, he noted.

A pro-reform demonstration is planned for Sunday night specifically for Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, the heart of the Opposition’s territory, to encourage the coalition to stay on course before the controversial vote.

There have reportedly been behind-the-scenes negotiations on softening the bill over the past week, led by Netanyahu, who is currently in the hospital after undergoing the installation of a pacemaker.

Netanyahu fired Gallant a few months ago after he made a televised appeal, calling for a halt to the judicial reform. The defense minister had warned that the rift in the country has caused “immediate and tangible danger” to Israel’s security, referring to the hundreds of IDF reservists who refused to show up for training in protest of the government’s planned judicial overhaul along with other acts of defiance among elite soldiers.

Gallant had acknowledged that changes to the judiciary were needed, but that they should happen through dialogue. Following pressure, Netanyahu returned Gallant to his position.