Israeli Pilots Speak Out Against "Immoral And Illegal" Orders

Last September, twenty-seven reserve and active duty airmen -- with only four retractors -- signed a letter addressed to Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, refusing to carry out "immoral and illegal" raids on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, warning that the occupation of Palestinian territories was eating at the moral fabric of the state of Israel.

"Is it legitimate to take F-15's and helicopters designed to destroy enemy tanks, and use them against cars and houses in one of the most heavily populated places in the world?" Capt. Alon R. told The Guardian, declining to use his full name.

"Because of the terrorism, we have become blinded by the blood on our own faces. We cannot see that on the other side, beside the terrorists, is a whole nation of innocent people. It's important that we recognize that, and that as military people, we say that."

The man, who served more than seven years as a pilot, said that over the past few years he found out that he had blood in his hands.

"In the beginning, we were pilots who believed our country would do all it could to achieve peace. We believed in the purity of our arms and that we did all we could to prevent unnecessary loss of life.

"Somewhere in the last few years it became harder and harder to believe that is the case."

The pilots struck out at the current government's policies towards the Palestinian people, raising moral and legal questions on the occupation and challenging Sharon's claim his strategy is about defending Israel.

"Our government's policy is to maintain fear among the public," Capt. Assaf L. said.

"We're not weak. It's not 1967 or 1973, with the Syrian army on the border waiting to attack us. This is maintaining a war to maintain the occupation.

"We're the strongest nation in the Middle East. The terrorists are bastards, but we must fight to not become terrorists ourselves."

Lieutenant-Colonel Avner Raanan, who is among the most respected pilots to have signed the letter, agreed.

"If you look at the past three years [when Sharon assumed power], you see that if we had a suicide bombing, the Israeli air force made a big operation in which civilians were killed, and that looks to innocent eyes like revenge," he said.

"You hear it in the streets of Israel; people want revenge. But we should not behave like that. We are not a mafia."

Raanan served for 27 years and was awarded one of Israel's highest military decorations in 1994.

The pilots recalled a deadly incident that weighed heavily on their consciences and drove them into signing the letter, which sent shockwaves across Israel.

The line was crossed with the dropping of the one-ton bomb last year on the home of a Hamas military leader, Salah Shehade, killing him and 14 of his family, mostly children.

One captain described the bombing as deliberate killing, even murder. Another called it state terrorism, said the British daily.

"The Shehade incident was a red light for us, a final warning," said Capt. Alon R.

"With Shehade, I began to re-evaluate my beliefs. We killed 14 innocent people, nine of them children. After that, my commander gave an interview in which he said he sleeps well at night and his men can do the same. Well, I can't. We refuse to see it as an innocent mistake."

Capt Assaf L., who served as a pilot for 15 years before being sacked, said he felt that the incident had made them a bunch of "terrorists."

"You don't have to be a genius to know that the destruction from a one-ton bomb is massive, so someone up there made a decision to drop it knowing it would destroy buildings.

"Someone took the decision to kill innocent people. This is us being terrorists. This is vengeance," he maintained.

The pilots further blamed the occupation, sprawling settlement activity and the suppression of the Palestinian people for the deteriorating situation in the region and the insecurity felt by Israelis.

"Our fight to keep the settlements and suppress the Palestinian people is killing us. It is killing our right to live safely in the country of Israel. A very small group of radical Israelis is leading the sane majority to catastrophe," said Capt. Jonathon S.

They also said that their freedom of expression was oppressed when they had tried to warn the Israeli people of the grave consequences of occupation, ridiculing the government for boasting about democracy.

Col. Raanan scoffed at the accusation that the pilots have denigrated their uniforms by wading into political issues.

"The air force commander spoke in favor of the [Jewish] settlements while sitting in uniform next to Sharon at a Likud party convention," he said.

"That is political. This country has a defense minister who, as army chief of staff, was the most political ever. It is hypocritical to say lower ranking officers cannot express an opinion. What they mean is, we can be political so long as we agree with the government. Well that's not democracy," he averred.

Capt. Jonathon S. said that politics cannot be separated form the military situation on the ground.

"We cannot separate the two. We are not pacifists. [But] We don't think we should sit back and let suicide bombers attack us. But all this is a direct result of our being in the [occupied] territories," he said.

Last month, four former heads of the Israeli Shin Beth interior security services warned of the "disastrous" consequences of Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The pilots say they have received more than 500 letters of support, including one from a Holocaust survivor, and numerous calls from fellow pilots.

Several leftwing former cabinet ministers praised the pilots' stand, saying it proved the armed forces were moral, The Guardian said.

Support for the pilots began one week after signing the petition as some 200 Israeli professors and university students signed a petition last October, supporting their courageous decision.