Israel Defense Forces sent a letter informing air force reservists of their right to subsidies on private life insurance under the Stipends Law, provoking a bitter response from non-air force reservists.

"I guess I am not important for my wife the way a pilot is important to his wife," a ground-force reservist said Tuesday.

The letter stated that the IDF would subsidise private insurance which air force reservists could take out at their own expense against loss of ability to work caused by injuries sustained while on duty.

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It noted that insurance premiums may be higher for air force reservists because their service is considered dangerous.

"It is noted that the life insurance is civilian and private," the letter states.

"The army's participation stems from the fact that insurance companies require reservists whose service includes a high risk factor to pay unusual premiums and therefore the aforementioned reimbursement is made. This of course does not undermine the fact that you are insured by the army through the Stipends Law in case you are hurt during and as a result of your service."

The subsidy was seen as unjust by reservists from other sectors of the armed forces who were not entitled to it.
"On the one hand the IDF says that all reservists are insured and on the other it says that there is no need to insure soldiers in a special policy because all the needs will be covered through the defense budget," a reservist said.

"All of a sudden, you see that there are special insurance policies for all sorts of other groups in the army, and this raises questions about who are the more important and less important people in the reserve corps," he added.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai is scheduled to hold meetings with legal experts at the ministry on the issue of insurance for reservists who are liable to lose their ability to work as a result of their service.

"From an ethical point of view, this is catastrophic," MK Avshalom Vilan told Haaretz. Vilan is head of the reservists' lobby at the Knesset.

"Whoever did this apparently was not thinking," he said, referring to the letter promising air crews insurance support.

"No one will say that pilots' blood is blue when compared with others', but this is the impression you get. I am certain that whatever is right for the air force is also right for all the soldiers. I will demand that the conditions offered to reservists will be equal across the board with those of air force reservists."

Haaretz recently reported that the defense establishment decided not to renew the insurance policies for reservists that had been in place for five years and guaranteed them against the loss of their ability to work. As a result, reservists have flooded reservist organizations with queries on whether they should turn up for duty if called.

"We are confused," a reservist told Haaretz. "After we got to the training ground, we were told by a colleague that our insurance has expired, and this raised questions. We asked our company commander, and this went up to the brigade commander, and they said that it depends on the Knesset."