From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Lapid to Netanyahu: Either announce at Congress you accept hostage deal, or nix US trip
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demands that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu either announce his acceptance of a hostage deal during his July 24 speech to the US Congress, or cancel his upcoming trip to Washington.
“Mr. Prime Minister, are you going to announce next week on the rostrum in Congress that you accept the hostage deal?” Lapid asks during a heated debate in the Knesset plenum. “If that’s what you will say, go in peace with our blessings. It is the right and moral thing to do. If that’s not your plan, don’t go to Washington.”
There are people within Netanyahu’s own bureau “who think and say that you should announce in a speech to Congress that you accept the hostage deal. Not in a twisty wording, not with conditions that would screw it up again,” Lapid continues, calling on Netanyahu to otherwise not “give a speech in the air-conditioning of Washington while the hostages are dying of suffocation in the tunnels of Gaza.”
Lapid also reiterates his prior criticism of Netanyahu for spending two hours discussing incitement against him during Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting rather than focusing on the fate of those suffering because of the war, saying the premier had “not said a word about the hostages.”
“You said that in the Middle East, only the strong are valued. If this is true, why did Hamas invade the territory of the State of Israel on your watch [and] kill 1,200 citizens? Did it not occur to them that there was someone strong before them that they should be afraid of? It’s because they knew something about you,” Lapid accuses.
