Lapid: ‘Israel was established so we could tell anti-Semites to shove it’

Lapid said that “anti-Semitism never acknowledges what it really is: xenophobia.”

By World Israel News Staff

Blue and White co-founder Yair Lapid gave a fiery speech on Nov. 9 at a conference in Paris, the Arutz 7 news site reports.

“The State of Israel was not established so that anti-Semitism will stop. It was established so we could tell the anti-Semites to shove it,” Lapid said, quoting Israeli author Ephraim Kishon, the website reports.

“The great anti-Semitic project, over the years, is to convince the world that anti-Semitism is the result of something the Jews have done. That anti-Semitism is a result, and there is a reason to justify it. Anti-Semitism never acknowledges what it really is: xenophobia,” he said.

“They don’t hate Jews for something the Jews did, but for what’s inside them. This is evil, malicious and ugly. In recent years, the new excuse has come. It’s because of Israel, it’s because of its treatment of Palestinians, it’s because of their concern for human rights.”

“They do not care about human rights, they are anti-Semitic,” Lapid said.

“They were silent when Assad murdered half a million of his people. They were silent when more than four million people were killed in the Congo civil war. They are silent as Iran hangs gays from telephone poles. They only wake up when it comes to a democratic, law-abiding state that does what it can to preserve human life. Why? Because it’s the Jews. And they hate Jews,” he said.

Lapid made his remarks at the Second Annual ELNET International Conference. ELNET is a non-profit group that seeks to strengthen relations between Europe and Israel with a focus on their shared democratic values and strategic interests.

“This is not a political debate. This is not an argument about Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians. It’s a years-old attempt to destroy and kill a small, talented people who insist on maintaining its unique character and voice,” Lapid noted.

“We are preparing to continue to insist on our voice. We will continue to sound it everywhere to tell the haters – the Jews are done being silent. The Jews are done being afraid. We know you, we know what you are, we will fight you.”

Anti-Semitism is considered to be on the rise in Europe. A report released over the summer by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights found that over 80% of young Jews surveyed say that anti-Semitism is a problem in their country,

“The young Jews surveyed indicated encountering harassment at higher rates than older generations: 44 % say they were targeted at least once in the year before the survey,” conducted in December 2018, according to the director of the agency, Michael O’Flaherty.

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