Yair Lapid is head of Israel's centrist Yesh Atid party and member of the Israeli Parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee. Speaking to reporters today, he commented that the wave of violence that has swept across Israel in recent weeks has been “Isil-like.” The uncoordinated string of attacks on Israeli citizens, predominantly knife attacks by Palestinian individuals acting on their own, has come apparently from nowhere.
The violence has led Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, to remark that the Holocaust was inspired by Palestinian clerics, among them the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. “I don't think it's suitable that on foreign soil I will criticise my Prime Minister,” said Lapid when asked about Netanyahu's reaction to the troubles.
Lapid is deeply concerned about the state of relations between Israel and the Palestinians. He is an advocate of the Two State Solution, under which Israelis and Palestinians would agree on the borders of a Palestinian homeland. A failure to arrive at such a solution could prove disastrous for Israel, warns Lapid.
“If you look at Jerusalem in which there are 350,000 Palestinians that have Israeli IDs, so far they've decided never to vote in Jerusalem's municipal [elections],” Lapid told me today. “But let's say they tell themselves, 'ok, there's no way they are going to give us our own state, we've got tired of waiting,' and they will vote. And I am telling you then we are going to have a Palestinian mayor in Jerusalem.”
How likely is that scenario? “Very likely,” responded Lapid. A Palestinian mayor of Jerusalem would bring Israeli politics to a point of crisis. The city of Jerusalem is intimately bound up with Israel's sense of nationhood. The capture of the Western Wall by Israeli forces during the 1967 Six Day War remains a defining moment in the nation's history and any sense that Israel's control over the ancient city had been diminished would be a huge blow.
There would be other, more practical consequences. The mayor has substantial control over the city's ancient sites, and power to withdraw or grant access. Such arcane details are of enormous significance to both sides.
“And the next step," said Lapid, "will be they will come to us and they will say 'listen, we realise you're not going to give us our own state, let us vote. We live here.' And then if you say no, you are not a democracy. If you say yes, you are not a Jewish state.”
Lapid, a former newscaster, shot to prominence in the 2013 Israeli elections when his party won 19 out of the 120 seats in the Knesset. In one stroke Yesh Atid, the party that he founded, went from nothing to being the second largest party in the country.
His new party dominated the post-election coverage, not only because his success was so surprising, but because he represented the resurgence of the Israeli political centre. In the post-2013 government he served as Minister of Finance under Netanyahu.
At the 2015 election, however, Yesh Atid suffered a political reverse. Lapid's party lost eight of its seats, its share of the vote falling by six percentage points. In the run-up to polling day, Netanyahu made statements indicating that he would never agree to a two-state solution—he increased his parliamentary presence by 12 seats. Since his victory, Netanyahu has not given any indication that he intends to revive the peace process.
As Lapid sees it, the only solution to Israel's security problems is separation from the Palestinians. The current violence, he suggested, will encourage more Israelis to draw the same conclusion. “Seventy-one per cent of Israelis believe that the two-state solution is not the best solution but the only solution,” said Lapid. “It is very obvious that this is going to be the subject of the next election.”
With the peace process on hold, Lapid has tried other avenues of opportunity. He recently met Turki Al Faisal, the former Director of Saudi Arabian Intelligence and Ambassador to the United States, to propose a regional summit. According to Lapid, Turki's reaction was: “We are interested in this. We want to know more.” The plan is Lapid's initiative, and not that of the Israeli government. He would not be drawn on the details of the plan, or say which countries would be under discussion.
“Israel cannot and should not try to absorb 3.5m Palestinians,” said Lapid. “In the long run our ability to stay a Jewish state is under jeopardy.” It is a stark reminder that the greatest threat to Israeli security is now its own failure to act. Having turned away from the two-state solution, Israel is drifting towards a one-state solution, an outcome that, as Lapid made clear, could lead his country to catastrophe.
