The Blogs: It’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?

I ask because, unlike Country Joe McDonald (he of Woodstock fame), I do give a damn

Dean Martin, a very un-Country Joe: Keep those letters coming in!

The letters have kept coming. No, not “Gimme an F! Gimme a U!….” Fabled American entertainer Dean Martin was no Country Joe. I’m talking about the group letters from people here who have served their country, and served it well.

“We, the fighters and commanders of the paratroop and infantry units, whose flag bears the words ‘We do not leave wounded behind on the battlefield,’ call for the return of the hostages, even at the cost of halting the fighting. This is a call to save lives,” went one of the letters.

These 1,600 reservist grunts were just some of those calling for an immediate end to the fighting against Hamas in an effort to bring the hostages back. All of the hostages. Not some. And yes, now.

The signatories have included senior reservists and retirees from the navy, air force and elite military intelligence units, as well as former top cops, Mossadniks and Shin Bet figures. They were not refusing to serve, as some of the darker forces in this country would want you to believe.

God forbid. These people are patriots, unlike so many of the fit and hearty men in black who openly state they’d rather die than serve. The signatories are the salt of the earth. People who care not only about the land and country, but also about its inhabitants.

Nowhere did they – many of them admittedly far beyond reservist age – suggest that anyone ignore mobilization orders. No ma’am. Everyone remembers the very legitimate blowback over the pre-war group letter from actual serving air force reservists who threatened such a move over the government’s audacious and utterly naked attempt to neuter the country’s judiciary.

IN CASE YOU DON’T know, Israel positively reveres its military air-crew personnel, colloquially lumping them together as tayyasim, or pilots. Their performance in the 1967 Six Day War was worthy of a Churchillian “Never in the field of human conflict…,” and that feeling sticks to this day.

No matter what anyone tells you about the IDF’s commando units or those brilliant men and women who serve in hi-tech units that turn out the fodder for Start-up Nation, tayyasim are still considered the crème de la crème, the Israeli military establishment’s first line of defense and its longest, most muscular arm of power projection, flying at the drop of a hat, day or night, whether around the corner to Gaza, up the road a bit to Lebanon or Syria, or thousands of miles to the south to answer the Houthis’ rockets.

To borrow a phrase from an American financial institution, when pilots talk, people listen.

Back in July of 2023, when they talked about not showing up, those still flying were canned. Not merely reassigned, but booted from the air force. In retrospect, Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar, its top commander, had little choice. The blowback was real and deeply reflective of a citizenry that still feels it has its back to the wall.

But after a much more recent letter from tayyasim – who this time made no mention of refusing to serve – Bar did a very silly thing: He fired them anyway. This is the same Tomer Bar who seems to have drawn inspiration from Israel’s entirely obtuse and detached prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who refuses to assume any blame for what happened on October 7, 2023.

For his sins, IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi hung up his red beret, and rightfully so. The Shin Bet’s Ronen Bar (no relation) is returning his own keys in a matter of days. But the Israel’s chief flyboy? The one who took his sweet time getting the country’s aerial combat machine aloft that terrible day? He’s pulling a Bibi and is still here, firing reserve subordinates for merely stating an opinion… and while still in their civvies.

His defense? These personnel were using the air force brand to get their message across. As if “air force” is Bar’s personal intellectual property or a national trademark that cannot be sullied.

And there you have it. Banding together under the organizational name and symbol of a military branch you faithfully served in order to give more of an oomph to a serious issue you see as potentially harming the branch – not to mention the entire country – now apparently infringes copyrights and intellectual laws.

IN THE INTERIM, Netanyahu himself is prolonging a war to bring about “total victory” over Hamas – whatever that means. It sounds good, of course, but the upshot is so nebulous that you can be sure he’s just trying to kill time and placate the uber-hawks in his coalition so they’ll stick around and help him avoid jail terms from three separate corruption trials.

Kill time. Kill soldiers. Kill hostages. Kill Gazans. What’s the difference if it helps Bibi avoid stir?

Unfortunately, though, even the best laid plans can unravel. Take the man Netanyahu personally championed to regain the reins of power in the United States, believing he’d see Bibi’s plight and give him a helping hand. Yet the unpredictable and even mercurial Donald Trump is now leaving his so-called buddy in the dust.

Behind Israel’s back, the US president negotiated directly with Hamas to effect the release of the last living Israeli hostage with US citizenship. (Behind Israel’s back!) Trump then made his first trip to the region since reassuming office – and studiously stayed away from Israel.

The US president traveled to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and even to Hamas-loving Qatar, where deals were made, talk of a “new Middle East” was bandied about, and a leadership lovefest sprang from barren desert sands.

All without Bibi – who as I write is unleashing yet again massive forces in the Gaza Strip in his quest for “total victory,” human life be damned.

I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that a whole lot of new group letters are headed for the post office. I can hear Dean Martin now: “Keep those cards and letters coming in!”

Martin insisted that he and his wife Jeannie loved to get them. Bibi and his wife Sara? Not so sure.

“So, it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for?”