MILITARY RESERVISTS REFUSING TO SERVE IN PROTEST OF THE JUDICIAL REFORMS, AND THOSE ENCOURAGING REFUSAL, IS “INCITEMENT” AND “CONTRARY TO DEMOCRACY AND THE LAW,” THE PRIME MINISTER SAID BEFORE THE WEEKLY CABINET MEETING MONDAY.

“Incitement to refusals is contrary to democracy. It cannot be that a small group threatens to do away with Israel’s security,” the prime minister said. Netanyahu emerged fiery and refreshed after a hospital stay over the weekend.

“I hear the voices in the public, I am attentive to them,” Netanyahu said, adding that “everyone” was worried for the future of the country, wanted to keep Israel’s Jewish and democratic, and knew that “we have no other country.” However, the two sides “differ on how to do this – and for this exactly we went to the polls,” he said.

“For all those who wave the flag of democracy, I want to say a few words about democracy. In a democracy, the military is subjugated to the elected government and not the opposite, while in military rule, the government is subjugated to the military – or, to be precise, to a group within the army. This is the basic difference between democracy and military rule,” he said.

“This is true in every democracy, but in our democracy, the incitement to refusal directly endangers the security of all of the citizens of Israel. They eat away at the deterrence of our enemies, who easily can be tempted to act of aggression against us, and they destabilize discipline within the army, which is the basis of the army’s existence in the first place,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister also said that there cannot be a situation in which a “group within the army” decides to neglect Israel’s security, comparing this to a clique in the Israel Electricity Corporation and Mekorot [national water supplier] deciding to turn off the electricity or water supply as a result ofpolitical differences.