Maj. (Res.) Shai Kelech, a reserves fighter pilot, visited the Israel National News studio to talk about the “Pilots Against Refusal” group, which combats the recent movement of IDF reservists who refuse orders in protest of the government’s judicial reform plan and is nearly unknown even though it has over 100 members.
“The media mostly knows how to echo the minor and marginal things. Our group has over 100 pilots today, including senior ones and high-ranking officers such as (Yom Kippur War hero) Avigdor Kahalani. The group tries to represent the general public who want to serve and contribute.”
According to him, “A significant group of pilots who called for refusal regret it to themselves. It hasn’t been publicized, but it’s clear that there is a certain level of regret. You have to understand going back on yourself is a strength it shows integrity and an inner virtue.”
Kelech does not take duty refusal lightly. “It is clear to anyone that there are red lines that, if crossed, the enemy will be glad to smite us. Avigdor Kahalani said that the cemeteries are full of soldiers who gave their lives, although they disagreed with the government. There’s a phenomenon here that needs to be looked at.”
According to Kelech, the issue that needs to bother us is not if there is duty refusal. “The deputy commander of a flight squadron called me last week and said: ‘You taught me that we will always remain brothers. Today I disagree with that brotherhood. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are not my brothers.’ This is a basic assumption that is being questioned. We have reached a situation today where from all of the vagueness, we are no longer divided on opinion, our hearts are divided. This is the first thing that needs to be dealt with.”
The source of the “vagueness,” as Kelech calls it, is the search for meaning. “Herzl coined the concept of a ‘safe haven for the Jews.’ If we think we came here to find a safe haven, we don’t understand the depth of the term, why we returned to Zion. Although it is a very positive thing to be a free nation in our land, to create a sovereign state that will prevent us from being destroyed in a holocaust, in the end, it’s a negative purpose. The nation of Israel has a purpose, as is written in the Declaration of Independence, ‘by the prophecies of the prophets of Israel.’
It’s not that they don’t have ideals,” explains Kelech,” They have their idealistic-ethical world of courtesy, which proceeds the Torah on the highest level otherwise, they wouldn’t have finished the fighter pilot course. The issues surrounding the return to Zion are confusing and make things vague. Our purpose as the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who have returned to our land, is what needs to be clarified.”
He sees it as his mission to confront this matter. “I have dreamt for several years to create an institution called ‘Machtzavim,’ which in Hebrew stands for public social leadership, which looks to explain those issues that are not properly explained. We will first learn to explain it to ourselves and then pass it on, to take from the nation of Israel’s spiritual treasures and put them in the hearts of the nation. Otherwise, postmodernity, progressivism, and neo-marxism will enter the hearts, and that’s what’s happening today.”