Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday he has informed IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir that he is rejecting the recommendation to appoint and promote Col. (res.) German Giltman, a senior figure in the protest group Brothers and Sisters in Arms.
Katz said Giltman had “called for refusal” to serve, and therefore should not hold any position in the IDF.
“Anyone who advocates refusal will not serve in the IDF,” Katz said in a statement. “I informed the chief of staff today that I am outright rejecting the recommendation to appoint and promote Col. (res.) German Giltman of Brothers in Arms, who called for refusal of service in the IDF.”
“Anyone who preaches or encourages refusal will not serve in the IDF and will not be promoted to any position,” he added.
Giltman, like Zamir who appointed him, rose through the IDF as an armored corps soldier and officer. Born in the former Soviet Union, he advanced to command both a battalion and a brigade, and his final active-duty role was as the IDF defense attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Moscow. After completing a 30-year military career and being discharged less than a year before the Oct. 7 attacks, he became a leading civilian activist in Brothers in Arms and one of the group’s prominent opponents of the government’s judicial overhaul.
The IDF did not immediately comment on Katz’s decision.