Shielding his eyes from the sun reflecting off the sand dunes, Eyal Naveh looked out at the hundreds of new recruits gathered at an army base in central Israel. He felt his stomach churn as he looked into the earnest eyes of the 18 year old staring back at him, exhausted from the morning's workouts. Naveh, over six feet tall and corpulent, is a 47-year-old veteran of Sayeret Matkal, Israel's most prestigious special forces unit. As part of the reserve service at the end of January, he trained a new generation of fighters. Some of these young people, he thought, would become the country's future leaders, just like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who served in that unit more than five decades ago.
Usually, when instructing recruits, Naveh beams with pride for his country. Still, he grieved that day. "What country will he serve?" he thought. During his lunch break, Naveh sat down with five reservist friends. The headlines in the newspaper on the table were disturbing. Netanyahu continued an initiative to implement legislative reforms that would give the government unprecedented control over the judiciary, including greater influence over the appointment of judges and limiting the Supreme Court's power to overturn laws.
"This is not a reform," Naveh told his friends. "This is a coup d'état. We have to do something.” Naveh and other reservists also feared that the politicization of Israel's judiciary could lead to a lack of international confidence in the institution and expose people who served in the military to prosecution at the International Criminal Court. "We wouldn't be able to leave the country without worrying about being arrested," he said.

The soldiers decided to start a WhatsApp group to see what they could do to thwart the government's plan. They called themselves "Brothers in Arms". Within a day, the group had 800 members.
On the night of January 25, Naveh and 50 other reservists, mostly from elite units of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), gathered in Herzliya, a coastal city north of Tel Aviv. They came from across the spectrum of Israeli politics. None of them had ever protested against the government before.
They devised a strategy to save Israeli democracy that included organizing protests and demanding talks with the government. Together they put together a message for the public: we, as reservists, have a contract with the Jewish and democratic state; our comrades sacrificed their lives for this country. An implicit message remained unspoken: we will not serve what we consider a dictatorship.
After two months, the "Brothers in Arms" found themselves at the center of a protest movement shaking the country. It has grown to 30.000 people. According to Naveh, most of them have now pledged to boycott military reserve service unless judicial reform is abandoned. It would be a serious blow to the armed forces. An IDF spokesman said there are "tens of thousands" of military reservists, outnumbering those on active duty. The Israeli army "cannot win the war" without them, the spokesman said.
Defense Minister Joav Galant, worried that a boycott could fatally weaken the country, called on the government on March 25 to halt judicial reform. He got fired the next day. The following evening, some 600.000 Israelis - about six percent of the population - took to the streets in protest.

The defiance of members of the military establishment was a shock in a country where the military plays a significant role in the formation of national identity. (Israelis must, at least in theory, serve military service, although many are granted exemptions.) At least a dozen retired security chiefs have been vocal participants in the protest movement. The former heads of the IDF, the Shin Bet, the security service, and the Mossad, the intelligence agency, have warned that Israel is in danger of becoming a de facto dictatorship.
"We see this as our second war for independence," Dan Halutz, the former head of the IDF, said recently after leading a street protest in Tel Aviv. He was constantly approached by passers-by who recognized him. One young man was on the verge of tears. "Please don't leave us," he said. Haluc took his hand and encouraged him: "We will never leave you."
The defiance of members of the military establishment was a shock in a country where the military plays a significant role in the formation of national identity
For the past two months, Naveh has spent his days planning his group's next demonstration. They held a big meeting every Saturday evening and up to six smaller ones a day. He hardly sees his wife and six children, and only comes home to sleep. "This is the most important mission I've ever been on," he told his family. The "Brothers in Arms" protests look more like performances than conventional demonstrations. They set up fake recruitment centers in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, where virtually no one serves in the army, and set up checkpoints that symbolically separate "Democratic Israel" from "Dictatorship of Israel." The first protest, held on February 2, was described by the Brothers in Arms as a "journey".
Over three days, protesters marched from Latrun - the site of one of the fiercest battles of Israel's War of Independence, where many IDF ceremonies are still held - to the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Naveh did not expect many people to join them in the 15 kilometer walk in the cold and rain. On the first day, there were 800. The next day, 2.500. By the third day there were 10.000. Holding Israeli flags and singing patriotic Hebrew songs, they stopped traffic as they marched.

Over the following weeks, tens of thousands of demonstrators joined regular protests against the government's program, which was undeterred. After the coalition proposed several laws on judicial reform, the attitude of the "Brothers in Arms" hardened. They protested in front of the homes of dozens of deputies. They gathered outside conferences where members of the ruling coalition were speaking, causing some, including Netanyahu, to cancel their attendance.
On March 9, Naveh and other "Brothers in Arms" leaders attacked the Kohelet Forum, a Jerusalem-based think tank believed to be directing the government's efforts to weaken the Supreme Court. They placed sandbags and barbed wire in front of the doors of the forum offices and the signs "Kohelet is closed". Naveh quickly changed his clothes, so as not to be recognized on the surveillance camera footage, and joined hundreds of "Brothers" members in front of the building. When the CEO of Kohelet entered the building, protesters surrounded him, shouting “traitors! and showering it with fake $100 bills to draw attention to the lack of transparency surrounding the research center's funding.
Naveh spent days planning his group's next demonstration. "This is the most important mission I've ever been on," he told his family
Ron Scherf, one of the co-founders of the Brothers in Arms, and another veteran, Sayeret Matkala, were arrested that day. Naveh directed his foot soldiers to the police station in Jerusalem where Scherf was being held. Turning to the police, he shouted, “Free Ron! He has backup service next Sunday!”
Naveh was scheduled to perform backup duty next week alongside Scherf. Naturally, he was looking forward to it. “I love the army. I love my country. I never thought about not serving.” This time, however, the decision was painful. However, he was convinced that he should do it. "As long as Israel is a democratic state, I will serve it with all my heart," he said. He encouraged other members of the "Brothers in Arms" to do the same.
Morale at the base was terrible. "The coup was all we talked about," he said. “We are all afraid.” On March 15, Naveh's last night on reserve duty, watched as President Isak Hercog announced that he had prepared a compromise in hopes of avoiding civil war. (Herzog held talks with representatives of various groups, including Naveh). Netanyahu rejected the plan within an hour. "We are already in a civil war," Naveh said a few days later with pain in his voice. This was the turning point.

Three days later, the "Brothers in Arms" escalated the rebellion. Only the threat that he would not serve did not work. Now the group has called on all reservists to sign a petition pledging to refuse reservist service. Almost 30.000 reservists have signed. Hundreds have already skipped duty in protest, risking fines and jail time.
Shaj Šidlovski, a 32-year-old engineer from the southern city of Berševo, who protested in Jerusalem every Sunday, brought his three-month-old son with him that day. A veteran of a tank unit, he does reserve duty for about a month each year and was scheduled to do so for five days during the last week of March. Still, he planned to pack his bags and go home if any part of the bill passed while he was with his unit.
Half of Shidlowski's family came from Iraq after the Jews were expelled from that country after the establishment of the state of Israel. The other half survived the Holocaust. "If the laws pass, this will not be the country where my grandparents found refuge," said Šidlovski, who is not a member of "Brothers in Arms". “If that means Israel will cease to exist, then it will cease to exist. It will not be because of me, but because of Netanyahu".
On the morning of March 23, which the protesters marked as "National Paralysis Day", the police arrested a number of movement leaders. In Tel Aviv that afternoon, protesters were greeted by water cannons and mounted police. Later that day, in a keynote address, Netanyahu announced that the new laws would be ratified next Sunday.

Netanyahu promised to "heal the national divide", but Naveh was not convinced. "What Netanyahu actually said is that he has decided to establish a dictatorship," he said the next morning. However, he did not lose heart. "We will continue to fight with all our strength," he said. "We will win this war."
Meanwhile, Shidlovsky was scheduled to report for duty at a base in the Negev desert in southern Israel on March 26. He wavered for weeks. On the evening of March 25, Defense Minister Galant sealed his own fate by publicly declaring that "the growing schism in our society... represents a clear, immediate and tangible threat to the security of Israel."
Šidlovski called his commander. “It's tearing me apart,” he told him, “but I can't be there tomorrow. His commander tried to persuade him to change his mind. "There aren't many people who serve in the reserves," he pleaded. "We keep the army. We are not Bibi's army. We are the army of Israel”. "I agree with you," Šidlovski told him, "but the basis of everything is our values as a free, democratic country. And if that contract is split, I cannot fight for a dictator".
Prepared by: A. Šofranac
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