The “bus affair” in which Israel became embroiled for a few hours this week is another example of the Jewish state’s capacity to shoot itself in the foot, sometimes for no reason. It also exemplifies the excessive (and sometimes destructive) political power wielded by the settlers who occasionally take control of the entire state and wreak damage on an international scale. This week, this takeover evaporated after a few hours. There is no way to know what will happen next week.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon is viewed as a statesmanlike figure, certainly far from being a racist. Despite his right-wing positions, he regularly supports the rule of law, protects the courts and vehemently denounces all expressions of racism toward minority groups, including Arabs. (Ya’alon was a left-winger in the past but changed after he served as head of the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) Military Intelligence Directorate.) Ya’alon is not a military hothead. He set the tone for Israel’s position during Operation Protective Edge from July-August 2014. His position was minimalist, as he maintained that Israel must not conquer or become embroiled in Gaza. He was also one of the opponents (in his time) to an Israeli assault in Iran. Ya’alon carefully avoids the large-scale military "escapades," but he has a strange tendency to become entangled in small ones.
What caused Ya’alon to make such a gross error in political navigation as to set off such an unwarranted land mine? His error gave the world media an opportunity to attack Israel on May 20 and compare it to apartheid South Africa.
As usual, everything is about politics. Ya’alon’s ruling did not directly deal with buses per se, so he had a pretext to deny the charge of “racist segregation.” It was, he charged, a decision designed to resolve a security breach that was reported in a state comptroller report. It's a fact that Palestinian workers entering Israel are checked upon entry to Israel but not upon exit. Ya’alon wanted to guarantee more effective control over Palestinian movement within Israel. Therefore, he decided that Palestinian workers who go to work in Israel via one of four checkpoint passages along the separation fence will now have to return home via the same checkpoint. Ostensibly, this is a logistical/bureaucratic decision. In reality, this decision has difficult ramifications for the Palestinians.
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