Lapid: Netanyahu has done his best to ruin US ties

Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid directed heavy criticism at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, saying he “has done his best to destroy our relationship with the US” and that Israel exhibited “diplomatic cowardice” in the aftermath of the summer’s Gaza war.

Speaking at a cultural event in Holon, the former finance minister said Israel should have taken an active role in Gaza reconstruction talks and demanded the demilitarization of the Strip.

“Netanyahu was anxious that we had not appeared determined enough during the operation and then going to the [Cairo-hosted] reconstruction summit would look like weakness,” Lapid said, calling this a mistake.

“It’s the prime minister always making an effort to do nothing,” he said. “If you don’t do anything, what are you in power for?”

The Netanyahu-led Israeli government and the Obama administration have often gone head to head, sometimes publicly, over a variety of issues, including disagreements over the ongoing talks with Iran on its nuclear program, continued Israeli settlement activity and perceived Israeli intransigence on peace talks.

Some of the differences have deteriorated into exchanges of name-calling between officials, reports of snubbing and other uncommon behavior between allies.

Lapid served as finance minister under Netanyahu until he was fired, along with Tzipi Livni as justice minister, in early December, as Netanyahu announced early elections — now scheduled for March 17, 2015.

Livni has since merged her Hatnua party with Labor chief Isaac Herzog in a bid to replace Netanyahu, with the two polling neck and neck with the premier’s Likud in recent polls. (Both parties are polling at just above 20 Knesset seats.)

Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, meanwhile, is currently projected by polls to suffer heavy losses in the coming elections, with most surveys showing it halving its Knesset standing from 19 Knesset seats last time to 10 or less.

Meanwhile, Likud MK Danny Danon, who is running against Netanyahu in the coming January party leadership contest but who has little prospect of beating him, said in Holon Saturday that Israel’s center-right parties must notify their supporters whether they would back a left-wing or right-wing government following the election.

Referring to Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman, Shas’s Aryeh Deri and Moshe Kahlon, leader of the new Kulanu party, Danon said: “I demand of Kahlon, Liberman and Deri, whose voters mostly come from the national camp (referring to the right), to be brave and announce if they support a right-wing government or a left-wing government.

“I am sure that any supporters from the national camp would feel betrayed if it turns out their vote was taken from the right and moved to the left,” he said.

In an Israel Radio poll Friday, Likud and Labor-Hatnua both received 23 mandates. A Maariv poll earlier Friday gave the joint ticket between Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni a slight lead, with 24 seats. According to the Maariv poll, Netanyahu’s Likud would win 23 seats if elections were held this week, up two seats from last week.

Lapid’s Yesh Atid, the outgoing Knesset’s largest party, fell to fourth or fifth place in those polls, receiving 8 and 11 seats, respectively.

Netanyahu’s main rivals on the right, Kahlon’s Kulanu party and Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, would get 9 and 8 seats, respectively, according to the Israel Radio poll. Naftali Bennett’s Orthodox-nationalist Jewish Home party, which is partnered with Likud in the outgoing coalition, had a consistently strong showing, with 17 mandates.

Thirty-nine percent of respondents to the Israel Radio poll said they would prefer Netanyahu lead the country, while 36% would sooner have Herzog take the top spot.