ferociously loyal to the force and to each other, There have never been public quarrels or signs of mutiny in the air force.
All this explains why the pilots struggled with themselves for so long, before they found in themselves the inner strength required for such an extraordinary, morally courageous act as publishing this appeal.
The 27 air force pilots informed their commander that from now on they would refuse to fulfill "immoral and illegal orders" that would cause the death of civilians. At the end of their statement, they criticized the occupation that is corrupting Israel and undermining its security.
The most senior officer among the signatories is Major General Yiftah Spector, who is also a living legend. He is the son of one of the "23 men in the boat," a group that was sent in World War II to demolish oil installations in Lebanon (at the time under Nazi-puppet Vichy French control) and never heard of again. Yiftah Spector was the instructor of many of the present commanders of the air force. Altogether, the statement was signed by one general, two colonels, nine lieutenant colonels, eight majors and seven captains.
Such a thing is unprecedented in Israel. Because of the special standing of the air force, the refusal evoked a much louder echo than the refusal movement of the ground troops, which seems to have leveled out, for the moment, at about 500 refuseniks.
The army establishment, the real government of Israel, sensed the danger and reacted as it had never reacted before. It started a wild campaign of defamation, incitement, and character assassination. The heroes of yesterday were turned overnight into enemies of the people. All parts of the government-from ex-president Ezer Weitzman to the Attorney General (who already has his eye on a seat in the Supreme Court), from the Foreign Office to the politicians of the Labor and Meretz parties-were mobilized in order to crush the mutiny of the pilots.
The counter-attack was headed by the media. Never before did they expose their real face as on this occasion. All TV channels, all radio networks and all newspapers-without exception!-revealed themselves as servants and mouthpieces of the army command. The liberal Ha'aretz, too, devoted its front page to a ferocious attack on the pilots, without giving space to the other point of view.
It was impossible to switch on a TV set without encountering the air force commander, and after him a long line of establishment figures who, one after another, condemned the pilots. Army camps were opened to the cameras, loyal officers damned their comrades as "traitors" who had "stuck a knife in our backs." Except for one single