Lapid, Liberman say cabinet rejection of ‘international diktats’ is distraction from other issues

By Sam Sokol 18 February 2024, 6:52 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman (right) and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid at the first government conference led by then-Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, at the Knesset on June 13, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Leaders of the Knesset’s opposition parties deride the government’s statement rejecting “international diktats” in pursuit of Palestinian statehood as a distraction from more pressing issues.

While he has long opposed any unilateral steps, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says that the statement earlier today is “a transparent attempt to divert the discussion away from the return of the abductees and the evasion law,” referring to recent legislation which would increase the length of mandatory military service without requiring members of the ultra-Orthodox community to enlist in the IDF.

“A settlement, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions,” the government stated today, calling unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state “a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would foil any future peace settlement.”

The statement is “a tool to distract from the discussion and vote that will take place tomorrow in the Knesset plenum, regarding the impeachment of the terrorist supporter Ofer Cassif,” states Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Liberman.

A vote on the impeachment of the far-left MK, who drew the right’s ire when he expressed public support for South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon in the Knesset.

Liberman further asserts that the declaration is “proof that Netanyahu does not agree to unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, but does agree to support the establishment of a Palestinian state as part of an agreement with the Saudis.”

“I don’t know how to tell them this,” but a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state “doesn’t include them,” Labor leader Merav Michaeli says of the members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.