In most countries the most noteworthy strikes and protests are the ones carried out by the largest unions, like teachers or transports workers, who can shut down entire industries and public services.
This week, the ninth in the protests against the Netanyahu government’s plan to weaken the Supreme Court, it was the tiniest groups who created the greatest stir. The few, to borrow a phrase from Churchill, were two small groups of pilots.
In the past weeks, there have been dozens of petitions and open letters signed by thousands of veterans of the Israeli security establishment, speaking out against the judicial overhaul, but none made as many headlines as the news that 37 reserve pilots (out of 40 on the roster) of the Israel Air Force’s 69th Squadron, had notified their commander they wouldn’t be turning up for a training exercise on Wednesday so they could join a protest against the government.
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An Israeli air force jet landing (Getty Images)
It was just one exercise. The pilots made it clear that they were available to fly any operational mission.
They didn’t even write a letter full of foreboding. And in the end, they did turn up on Wednesday at Hazerim Airbase next to Beer Sheva for a meeting with the commander. It didn’t matter.
Just the mere suggestion that the 69th reservists, the backbone of the aircrew of the only squadron flying F-15I long-range fighter-bombers, would make any kind of political protest and absent themselves from just one short exercise, was enough to pile new pressure on the government which is already flailing in its attempts to muster public support for its “legal reform”.
As in many other countries, there is a degree of social pageantry and mythology attached to the role of fighter pilots in Israel.
As one pilot observed with irony this week, for years the IAF has been trying to disassociate itself from that haughty image of the pilot which decades ago was encapsulated in its long-abandoned slogan from the 1960s: “The Best for Flight”. But the attention to the pilots’ protest proved that they are still seen by many as the best.
Some coalition politicians grumbled this week that it only proved that the protesters are “privileged” and that there are no similar protests from veterans of less glamorous field units (there are).
But the polls are showing that nearly 60 per cent of the public are against the government’s plan, at least as it is being pursued right now — which means that around one in five of those who voted for parties of the coalition are now opposed to its main policy.
Last Sunday there was an even worse poll for the government on Channel 13 showing that if an election were held now the coalition parties would go down from their current majority of 64 seats to only 56. That’s a 15 per cent drop, just four months after they won an election. Or about 10,000 votes lost for each protesting pilot of the 69th Squadron.
First-class mess
An even smaller group of pilots causing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a headache this week were those of El Al’s Boeing 777 fleet.
Like all other airlines, Covid-19 forced Israel’s national carrier to downsize and as a result it retired its older aircraft, retaining just two newer types: Boeing 737s for the shorter-range and lower-capacity routes and wide-bodied 787s for the major destinations.
But as the pandemic eased and air travel resurged, El Al reactivated two older 777s that had been parked at Ben Gurion airport for over two years, and now uses them mainly for the popular Bangkok route.
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Israel's principal air hub, Ben Gurion Airport
With just two aircraft of the type servicing one destination, the company needs fewer than 20 pilots with current ratings for the 777.
Last month, when Netanyahu made his second trip abroad since reelection (his first was to Jordan where he flew by IAF helicopter) to Paris, the company was surprised when his office specified that they wanted a 777. Since it was short notice, pilots could choose whether to fly, and no one did.
Whether it was a private act of political protest or they just didn’t want to spend a weekend away from home (Netanyahu’s trips to meet European leaders from some reason often include a Shabbat with his wife and entourage out of the country), El Al failed to find a crew, and instead, the company’s chief pilot and fleet manager, the only members of senior management with 777 ratings, flew him to Paris.
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Benjamin Netanyahu
This weekend Netanyahu is in Rome, after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. And once again his office requested a 777. I asked a couple of El Al insiders if they could explain why the two previous prime ministers, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, had flown by 737 or 787 on their foreign trips. Neither could say for sure, but one of them sent me a 777 seat-chart with the front row encircled.
Like many other airlines, El Al no longer offers a first-class service on any of its flights. The newer planes were all ordered with just business-class seats up front. But the older 777s still have a first row with three, more spacious pairs of what were once first-class seats, the last of their kind.
Whatever the reason, it wasn’t to be this time. No 777 pilots, not even senior management, were available for this week’s flight.
Sources in the prime minister’s office accused El Al of “reprehensible behaviour” and Transport Minister Miri Regev said that the tender for flying the PM would be opened to other Israeli airlines, but in the end he will be flying El Al, just a different type with more plentiful aircrew.
Why not Arkia or Israir? Their planes don’t even have business class.
New-style protesters
Not having the plane of their choice will not be the only annoyance for the Netanyahus on this trip. They will also have more protests, from groups of Israeli expatriates and local Jewish organisations, outside their hotel.
This is yet another sign of the times. Protests against visiting Israeli leaders are often staged by pro-Palestinian groups. Now they’re being organised by the most pro-Israel Jewish communities in the diaspora -— outside Netanyahu’s hotel in Rome on Friday and Shabbat and at the Israel Bonds annual leadership conference in Washington DC, where Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is scheduled to speak on Sunday.
Bezalel Smotrich (Photo by Flash90)
Bezalel Smotrich (Flash90)
That is, if he gets a visa from the Biden administration, which is not guaranteed.
All this will, of course, be very much on the minds of the main machers of British Jewry as well, who gathered this week in London at an invitation-only meeting behind closed doors to discuss the “Impact of Israeli politics on British-Jewish life” with an emphasis on “the effects on Jewish identity, philanthropy and relationship with wider British society”.
I bumped into one of them a few weeks ago at one of the protests in Jerusalem, though he made it clear he was there in a private capacity.
“If you had told me that one day I’d be at a protest against the Israeli government,” he said, “I’d have said you’re bonkers. Yet here I am.”
