Lapid, Livni: Decision by Likud body a ‘gift’ to BDS

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party aided efforts to boycott, divest, and sanction Israel around the world when it passed a resolution calling for sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid and Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni said Monday.The non-binding resolution calls upon the elected officials of the Likud to work towards free construction and application of Israeli law and sovereignty in all liberated areas of settlement in Judea and Samaria. It does not contain the word annexation, nor was that word mentioned in the two-hour event, but the Likud’s critics charged that giving more rights to West Bank Jews would make the fate of Palestinians living there look worse.“I have been fighting BDS activists all over the world for three years, and then the central committee gives the BDS movement a gift,” Lapid lamented.Livni said Israel would pay a price for what she called “crawling toward annexation.” She said Netanyahu should have stopped the central committee from approving it.“The central committee, with the encouragement of the government, did a terrific service to the BDS movement, and will harm the legitimacy of Israel in the world,” Livni told the Zionist Union faction. “When the time came for Netanyahu to take action, he ran away, showing no leadership. I know he knows how dangerous this is, but he gives it a hand. We’ll fight so it won’t be implemented.”Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay called the Likud’s decision “an empty declaration” but said that if the Knesset had made such a decision, “It would mean the end of Israel’s international relations.” He said even US President Donald Trump would not come and save Israel from the wrath of the international community.Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett welcomed the Likud decision to adopt a resolution he said, has been his party platform for years. He said the decision proved that Bayit Yehudi was always the pioneer that proves to everyone that what they believed was impossible can indeed be done.Bennett attacked Lapid for saying that the decision would encourage BDS. He said it was time for Lapid to stop posing as a right-winger, when he really supports the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.“We have let Yair Lapid wear a costume for too long,” Bennett said. “Lapid is really Meretz covered in blue and white.”