“In order to protect a Jewish and democratic state I need to protect a Jewish majority for the Jewish state,” said Livni in her speech.
“So it is in the Israeli interest to stop and separate from millions of Palestinians. If we don’t separate from them now, we will eventually have to accept them as citizens in one state and the Jewish state will turn into a Palestinian state.”
She also accused the government of having no strategy towards Gaza, and said that total separation from the Palestinians was the only way of solving the wider Palestinian problem, which she said was “primarily an Israeli problem.”
In addition, the former foreign minister and acting prime minister accused the current government and the Israeli right of undermining democracy.
“Peace will be a dirty word in the coming elections and democracy will be a dirty word in the coming elections,” she asserted.
“We need a Jewish and democratic state which is secure, in the Land of Israel. A Jewish state which isn’t a halachic state, which is the state of the Jewish people, where its Jewishness accepts Diaspora Jews regardless of what denomination they belong to, where Jewishness includes equality, and equality is perforce a value of democracy, and our democracy doesn’t just say that what the majority says is what happens and the minority has to do what we say.”