How the Flydubai midair attack gave Netanyahu an election boost

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handling of the crisis after the Flydubai attack demonstrated his “facility at dominating the news cycle and setting the agenda of the debate” in the crucial weeks ahead of the October 27 Israeli election, said Haaretz columnist Joshua Leifer, speaking on the Haaretz Election Podcast. 

Netanyahu skillfully and quickly took the spotlight, basking in the reflected glory of the heroic pilot and passengers who saved the plane, while evading responsibility for the security failures as he did post-October 7. By doing so, he put his election rivals in a lose-lose position, Leifer noted. 

If his rivals for power publicly acknowledged that “we're living in a dangerous neighborhood and we have to step things up, then you know they end up backing him,” Leifer said. “But if the opposition comes out and starts blaming Netanyahu” for the oversights and negligence that led to the near-disaster, “they come out looking like they’re spoiling the party and they’re not loyal.”

Leifer’s fellow Election Podcast panelist Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin agreed and said given the situation, it is “smarter” for the opposition to “sit back and let the facts come out” in the media rather than go on the offensive. 

On the podcast, Leifer and Scheindlin joined host Allison Kaplan Sommer to discuss flydubai, along with the impact of the commemoration of three years since October 7 on the campaign, dueling interpretations of the current polls, and the Netanyahu opposition’s “horrifically mismanaged” campaign.

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