From the Liveblog of
Monday, April 15, 2024
Netanyahu, Lapid trade jabs over national security
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"
Responding to Yair Lapid’s statement that Netanyahu and his government “have become an existential threat,” the ruling Likud party accuses the opposition leader of hypocrisy and criticizes him for spending the weekend abroad while Israel was attacked by Iran.
“Lapid, who signed a shameful surrender agreement with Hezbollah and preferred to stay abroad this week while Israel was attacked, is not the man to preach,” Likud says in a statement referring to a US-brokered maritime deal with Lebanon signed by the then-prime minister Lapid in 2022.
Lapid was in the US at the time of Saturday night’s surprise attack, after holding meetings with American officials.
Likud states that Netanyahu “recognized the Iranian threat decades ago and since then has been leading the global campaign against it.”
Hitting back, Lapid issues a statement of his own and doubles down on his criticism.
“Israeli deterrence in Lebanon collapsed when Netanyahu allowed Hezbollah to set up tents inside the sovereign territory of the State of Israel, unlike Lapid, who reached a maritime agreement despite Hezbollah’s opposition,” Lapid’s office states — a reference to tents set up by Hezbollah operatives on the Israeli side of the Blue Line between the two nations last year.
“As for Iran — if Netanyahu worked all these years on the Iranian issue, how did they become a nuclear-threshold country and send hundreds of drones and cruise missiles to attack the State of Israel?”
