BICOM

Yesh Atid leader and Finance Minister Yair Lapid yesterday outright rejected Naftali Bennett’s suggestion that Israel should annex the areas of the West Bank that it already controls.

Peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were suspended last month in the wake of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas to form a Palestinian unity government, because Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction. Since the breakdown in talks, several Israeli leaders have mulled possible next steps. Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with Bloomberg that “the idea of taking unilateral steps is gaining ground, from the centre-left to the centre-right.”

Meanwhile, also last week, Jewish Home leader and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which he suggested that there should be Palestinian self-government in the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank, while Israel should formerly annex the areas of the West Bank under its control.

Speaking at the Israel Bar Association conference yesterday, Lapid thoroughly rejected Bennett’s suggestion and indicated that he would resign from the coalition if annexation took place. Lapid commented, “If there will be annexation, then there will be no government. There is no solution but the two state solution. Unilateral withdrawal and annexation will only lead to a bi-national nation. Which spells the end of Zionism and I will not have it.” Last week, Justice Minister and Hatnuah Party leader Tzipi Livni also heavily criticised Bennett’s plan, saying it would lead to a bi-national state and a country which “will not be the Israel we love, it will be another country – the end of Zionism.”

Lapid also indicated yesterday that PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s intransigence was to blame for the collapse of talks, commenting that if Abbas “is incapable of signing a deal which he feels harms the Palestinian ethos, we need to see who we can negotiate with.”