Netanyahu blasts Lapid for ‘weakness, defeat and surrender’

“Tonight, we heard a speech full of weakness, defeat and surrender,” Netanyahu stated in response to the prime minister’s address to the UN.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

Opposition leader and former premier Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Prime Minister Yair Lapid for his address to the 77th United Nations General Assembly on Thursday that called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“After the right-wing government led by me removed the Palestinian state from the global agenda, after we brought four historic peace agreements with Arab countries that bypassed the Palestinian veto, Lapid is bringing the Palestinians back to the forefront of the world stage and putting Israel right into the Palestinian pit,” Netanyahu stated in a Hebrew-language video address.

“Lapid has already said in the past that he is ready to evacuate 90,000 Israelis to establish a Palestinian state. Now he intends to give them a state of terror in the heart of the country, a state that will threaten us all,” he said.

“I and my friends will not allow this” declared Netanyahu, who is running to regain the premiership in the upcoming November election. “We will not allow the establishment of Hamastan on the border of Kfar Saba, Petah Tikva and Netanya. We will not return Israel to the Oslo disaster. Lapid endangers our future and our existence both on the Palestinian issue and on the Iranian issue.

“While Iran rushes to a nuclear agreement that endangers the very existence of the State of Israel,” he continued, “Lapid does nothing. For more than a year he has been asleep at the wheel.

“Unlike us, Lapid did not fight against Iran in the U.S. Congress, in the U.S. media, in the U.S. Senate. He didn’t do anything,” he charged.

A JNS analyst noted that Lapid’s speech changed the entire election focus from “Anybody but Bibi” to a clear conflict between the left, led by Lapid, and the right, headed by Netanyahu.

In the video, Netanyahu vowed: “We will return to Israel a strong government that will prevent a Palestinian state, stop Iran, restore national honor and bring Israel back to the world status it had and which you so deserve.”