Opposition leader calls for elections after operation ends

Opposition leader and head of the Labor Party Yitzhak Herzog says Israel must go to general elections after Operation Protective Edge ends.

“The Israeli people will face a tough decision [after this conflict]: does it see a future for the two-state solution, or not, which is why I think that after this military campaign, we must go to elections,” he says.

“The people will have their say because this government has failed on almost every front. Economically, we’re on the verge of an economic catastrophe, not to mention the dead end on the diplomatic front regarding the peace process, which in its way, has led us to where we are now,” he says during an interview with Channel 2.

Herzog says Netanyahu failed to shore up the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, “who belongs to the moderate axis in the region,” and has instead strengthened Hamas, by calling off US-brokered negotiations in April.

“I’m not here to defend Abbas. Abbas is a rival, but he’s a rival who recognizes the state of Israel and says ‘I will not use terror,” Herzog stresses.

“We must give hope to the Israeli people. We can’t live like this forever.”

“We have to decide, We can’t hold on to the West Bank as whole. We can’t keep [millions of] Palestinians in a pressure cooker. Those who want the West Bank to be, God forbid, like Gaza, should continue on this path. Those who don’t must pursue a brave [peace] process,” he goes on.

Herzog says Netanyahu should have immediately resumed talks with Abbas while operating against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Borrowing from the late Yitzhak Rabin’s famous saying “we have to fight terror as if there were no peace talks, and we have to pursue peace as if there were no terror,” Herzog says of the situation “we must hit Hamas as if there are no peace talks with Abbas, and pursue peace talks with Abbas as if we are not hitting Hamas.”