Instability on the horizon in Israel

Comments attacking Turkey and the UN are attempts by Tel Aviv to divert media attention

Recent comments attacking Turkey and the UN are attempts by Israel's leadership to divert media attention. Jim Hollander / EPA

Speaking in Athens on Tuesday, Israel’s defence minister Moshe Yaalon accused Turkey of buying oil from ISIL and questioned the country’s commitment to US-led anti-ISIL coalition efforts. The accusations come on the heels of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling reporters that UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is “encouraging terror” after Mr Ban said that it was human nature for oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians to react to occupation.

Mr Yaalon’s statements are intriguing. Last week, he told a security conference that he would prefer ISIL to Iran if he had to choose. Given the nature of the statements coming from Israeli leaders lately, Tel Aviv appears to be engaged in a form of media diversion. By attacking Turkey and the United Nations, Israel is moving attention away from the continued violence between Israel, West Bank settlers and Palestinians. The country has failed to curb the recent wave of settler attacks and Palestinian stabbings. The public-relations solution to this failure is diversion.

Israel recently used this tactic after several West Bank settlers confessed to an arson attack in the village of Duma that burnt alive a Palestinian family. Instead of confronting the reality that it can’t control its settler population, Israel went after leftist organisations fighting the occupation with a campaign of intimidation and arbitrary arrest. The latest verbose statements about the regional situation are, once again, designed to draw scrutiny away from the chaos on the ground.

But the facts are there and some in Israel know that the situation is unsustainable. This week, the Israeli military took a sober view on the situation in the West Bank and found that there remains a great potential for a short-term escalation in violence. Nearly four months since the latest outbreak of violence, the army believes that a wider uprising is a clear possibility. Ending the ­occupation would be the obvious way to ensure stability, but Tel Aviv has expressed no interest in doing that. Israel is only fooling itself if it thinks it can divert the world’s attention for ever.