The revolt that bent the reform: How the legal protest became a test of control over the military
Prof. Moshe Cohen Eliya analyzes the failure of the 2023 judicial reform, pointing to the main cause: the organized reserve protest that turned IDF readiness into a political pressure lever against the government. He defines this as a political revolt, not conscientious objection, and warns against using the military as a tool for political extortion in a democratic state.
Prof. Moshe Cohen Eliya analyzes the failure of the judicial reform initiated by the Netanyahu government in 2023, pointing to the main cause: the organized reserve protest that turned IDF readiness into a political pressure lever against the elected government. According to him, this is a political revolt in every sense, not conscientious objection, as it is a collective and organized action aimed at using military force to politically extort the government. He quotes Col. (res.) Noa Erez, who said in an interview on October 1, 2023, that the goal was to cause the Air Force "not to return to full functionality" in order to "create pressure on decision-makers." He also mentions the statement of Kobi Richter, one of the protest leaders: "The security power is us, the protesters, and the economic power is us—we are the solution for the state, not the government." Cohen Eliya claims that Hamas monitored these developments, and documents seized in Gaza showed that Hamas intelligence had already analyzed in summer 2023 the potential harm to Israeli cohesion and readiness. He notes that on October 7, the Air Force was ineffective for many hours, and an expedited process was needed to restore readiness for some reservists. However, he emphasizes that the main lesson is that one must not gamble with citizens' lives or threaten harm to military readiness to resolve a constitutional dispute. The article concludes with a call to resolve the constitutional crisis through legislation of Basic Law: Legislation and Basic Law: Constitutional Court, rather than repeating the same mistakes.
The revolt that bent the reform: How the legal protest became a test of control over the military