From the Liveblog of
Saturday, February 17, 2024
Lapid: If I’d been PM on Oct. 7, Netanyahu ‘would have sent people to burn my house’
Opposition leader Yair Lapid says Israel must be prepared to pay a higher price than it has ever paid before to secure the release of the remaining hostages from Gaza.
He recalls that he opposed the 2011 deal to secure the release of soldier Gilad Shalit, but says “this is not the same thing.”
Israel should not agree to a deal “at any price… There are prices Israel cannot pay… But if we don’t get the hostages back, it won’t be a victory,” he says.
Lapid repeats his contention that Benjamin Netanyahu “is not fit to be the prime minister of Israel,” and protests “the complete abandonment, by the government, of Israeli citizens who are sitting in the Hamas tunnels.”
“If October 7, heaven forbid, had happened on my watch,” he charges, Netanyahu “would have sent people to burn my house.”
He also criticizes Netanyahu for the friction in US ties over the Palestinian Authority’s post-war role. “The PA must be deradicalized” before Israel can start to talk to it, he says. “This can’t happen in the near future.”
But “why do we always have to be the rejectionists,” Lapid laments. “Why not say: Yes, but?”
