Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid voiced his support for resuming peace talks
with the Palestinians in excerpts of a Time magazine interview released on
Thursday, stating that “you make peace with foes, not with
friends.”
“Israelis convinced themselves that there is no use in talking
to the Palestinians because they’re not to be trusted.
I think they’re
wrong. I think the Palestinians are not to be trusted and this is exactly why we
should talk to them,” Lapid said in the interview.
Lapid called the
failure to resume negotiations for a twostate solution “irresponsible,” and
“shortsighted,” stating that his “father didn’t come here from the ghetto in
order to live in a country that is half Arab, half Jewish. He came here to live
in a Jewish state.”
He also stated that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
likely understood the demographic danger to the Jewish state posed by the lack
of a twostate solution, but had been handcuffed by his
coalition.
“Unbelievably enough, I do believe Netanyahu believes the
same, but he does not have the coalition, and right now not even the party to
support him.
So maybe in a few weeks one of my jobs will be to make sure
he has enough fingers to vote about this, from within the coalition or from the
opposition; [it is] same thing.”
When asked about the Likud list moving
to the Right and the rise of Bayit Yehudi in the Knesset election, Lapid warned
that the conflict with the Palestinians could potentially take on a new
dimension that would make a solution more difficult to come by.
“Right
now, we have with the Palestinians a national dispute.
But the point of
no return is the moment this has become a religious dispute. Jews versus
Muslims.
Not yet. With Hamas, it’s a religious dispute. But not yet with
Fatah. With the Palestinian Authority, we have a national dispute. And we should
keep it this way, because a national dispute we can solve. When it gets into “My
God is better than yours,” then it becomes an everlasting conflict.”
Yesh
Atid on Tuesday recommended to President Shimon Peres that Netanyahu form the
next government. Sources in the party said that, in addition to either the
finance or foreign portfolios for Lapid, they would ask for the Construction and
Housing Ministry, and for the Education Ministry for Rabbi Shai Piron, who is
second on the party’s list.