THE SPEECH

The Israeli-based international news and current affairs television channel i24NEWS gave an early appraisal of Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s address at the United Nations General Assembly, last week. “It’s no coincidence that Yair Lapid, one of Israel's most calculated politicians in recent years, chose to ‘whip up a storm’ over his UNGA address, more than 24 hours before he delivered it. “Wrote Ariel Schmidberg, the channel’s news editor.

“During election campaigning, Israeli politicians make every effort to avoid controversial topics liable to alienate potential voters.

 Apparently, Yair Lapid broke that golden rule.

Nevertheless, from the 1990s until 2016, every Israeli prime minister who spoke at the UN mentioned the "two-state solution." 

Benjamin Netanyahu also paid lip service to the same formula. 

But since 2016, the political (and international) reality has changed, and the issue has been abandoned. 

Lapid has supported a two-state solution for decades, dating back to his pre-political career, when he was a newspaper columnist.

The big difference between Netanyahu and Lapid is that when Netanyahu talked about two states for two peoples at the UN, Israelis didn’t take him seriously. They accepted it as a diplomatic ploy, part of the UN ritual, nothing more. On the other hand, Lapid enjoys greater credibility, therefore from an electoral viewpoint reinstating the two-state solution is hazardous, to say the least.

Incidentally, while he was in New York Prime Minister Lapid did not meet with President Biden.

If former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had gone to the annual UNGA event without meeting the US president, it would have been seen as a crisis in Israeli-American ties.

It was part of Netanyahu's showmanship to believe that his trips to the US must be accompanied by a meeting with the US president. Indeed, during his last UNGA trip in 2020, he met with former US president Donald Trump.

For Lapid, such a meeting or even a photograph was not on the agenda. It was one of a number of examples of how Lapid chooses statesmanship over showmanship.

In fact, Netanyahu's dramatic flair was absent from the moment Lapid's limousine pulled up to the El Al plane that would take him to New York.

When traveling abroad, Netanyahu would walk slowly up to the cameras and issue statements to the media. Lapid prior to departing for New York sent his quotes to the media by WhatsApp. He skipped right over the limelight moment and simply boarded the plane.

Similarly, when Lapid delivered his first ever UNGA speech at an opening session, the drama was in the words, not the presentation. There were no placards or gimmicks. He didn't disclose classified information (the absconded Iranian nuclear files).

The critics were quick to find fault with his speech. 

“For years, Netanyahu managed to sideline the Palestinian issue from the global agenda,” said a Likud party spokesperson. “Lapid brought Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] back to centre-stage in less than a year.”  Further to that, a statement issued by the Likud party accused Lapid of “wanting to establish a Palestinian state on the border of Kfar Saba, Netanya, and Ben-Gurion Airport, and give over territory in our homeland to our enemies.”

Just the same, Lapid has said he would demand a resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. His party's 2013 platform called for an outline of "two states for two peoples", while maintaining the large Israeli settlement blocs, a united Jerusalem, and ensuring Israel's security.] In January 2013, just days before the election, Lapid said he would not join a cabinet that stalled peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, and added that a single country for both Israelis and Palestinians without a peace agreement would endanger Israel's Jewish character. He said, "We're not looking for a happy marriage with the Palestinians, but for a divorce agreement we can live with." As part of a future peace agreement, Lapid said Palestinians would have to recognise that the large West Bank settlement blocs of Ariel, Gush Etzion, and Ma'aleh Adumim would remain within the State of Israel. According to Lapid, only granting Palestinians their own state could end the conflict, and Jews and Arabs should live apart in two states, while Jerusalem should remain undivided under Israeli rule. He says that he is guided by a principle of "maximum Jews on maximum land with maximum security and with minimum Palestinians."

Of the diplomatic stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Lapid said, "Most of the fault lies with the Palestinians, and I am not sure that they as a people are ready to make peace with us." He has also dismissed the possibility of a comprehensive peace deal with the Palestinians as unrealistic.

In June 2015, after the March 2015 elections, Lapid visited the United States, and after an hour-long interview, American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg wrote, "Lapid is a leader of the great mass of disillusioned centrists in Israeli politics. He could conceivably be prime minister one day, assuming Benjamin Netanyahu, in whose previous cabinet he served, ever stops being prime minister. Now functioning as a kind of shadow foreign minister, Lapid argues that Israel must seize the diplomatic initiative with the Palestinians if it is to continue existing as a Jewish-majority democracy, and he is proposing a regional summit somewhat along the lines of the earlier Arab Peace Initiative. Lapid is not a left-winger—he has a particular sort of contempt (perhaps disregard would be more accurate) for the Israeli left, born of the belief that leftists do not recognise the nature of the region in which they live. But he is also for territorial compromise as a political and moral necessity, and he sees Netanyahu leading Israel inexorably toward the abyss."

In September 2015, Lapid laid out his diplomatic vision in a major speech at Bar Ilan University in which he said, "Israel's strategic goal needs to be a regional agreement that will lead to full and normal relations with the Arab world and the creation of a demilitarised independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. That's where Israel needs to head. Separation from the Palestinians with strict security measures will save the Jewish character of the state."

 

Lapid supports recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He noted in 2017 that with Iran attempting to establish a foothold in Syria, Israel cannot be expected to relinquish the Golan Heights.

According to many estimates, the election will be decided by swing voters who are to be found firmly in the centre-right of the political map.

Some observers believe Lapid will try to entice reluctant voters in the Greater Tel Aviv area, especially in neighbourhoods noted for their low voter turnout. 

International news media outlets allotted Lapid’s UNGA address no more than a passing mention. After all, the attention of world leaders is not focused on Israel, it’s focused on two central issues: the war in Ukraine and the violation of human rights in Iran.

Lapid's language was also the strongest in support of Palestinian statehood since Ehud Olmert was prime minister.

It's a move that will likely raise his standing in the international community and help Israel push back against the apartheid campaign which claims that it only wants a Jewish state from the River to the Sea. Most political analysts applauded the prime minister’s UNGA speech, but doubted if Israelis will remember it when they go to the polls on the 1^st of November.

  So far there is little or no indication that Yair Lapid is attempting to cobble together a coalition government. Even the likelihood of including the United Arab List (Ra’am) led by Mansour Abbas hasn’t been considered. He prefers to leave the political wheeling and dealing till after the elections.

 

Ahead of Yom Kippur, I wish you well over the fast.

 

 

Beni,                                                   29^th of September, 2022.