Ya’alon to Evacuation Refuseniks: Yer Fired!
Moshe Ya’alon stuck it to the new refuseniks last Thursday, saying,
Any officer who fails within 24 hours to retract his signature from a declaration of intent to refuse to evacuate settlements will be stripped of his rank and ousted from the Israel Defense Forces […] Ya’alon issued his warning in response to a letter published [Wednesday] in Yedioth Ahronoth in which four battalion commanders and 30 other officers, all residents of West Bank settlements who serve in the Ramallah-area regional defense brigade, declared that they would refuse an order to evacuate settlements.
Ya’alon followed up by firing six reserve officers this morning.
Well that’s an easy out, ain’t it? If you refuse to serve in the territories, they put you in jail and you still have to serve. A double standard or just a bout of contentiousness?
The difference is that the lefty dodgers get rewarded by getting ousted from the army, as opposed to the patriotic right-wingers whose punishment is to get kicked out of the army.
I don’t know why they decided to try and make a right wing version of the disastrous ‘pilot’s letter’. Who knows is this idiotic retreat plan will even go through. I understand that they want to show that there won’t be an army left to execute the plan, but frankly, I don’t see a reason to go blab about it.
There is no threat of civil war with the left! So yes, it does sound like a doble standard, but I assume that the IDF feels a needs to draw a line in the sand with the extreme right wingers. You cannot be a 5th column for your cause while serving in the Israeli military. Hmmm… I need to think about this more.
Another thing is that the people who are put in jail and then required to serve are regulars – these are reservists, so the situation isn’t exaclty the same.