The opposition party Yesh Atid would be willing to join the government in order to save the 136 hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza if the far-right parties Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionist Party leave the government in opposition of a deal, opposition leader and Yesh Atid chairman MK Yair Lapid said in an interview on Channel 12 on Tuesday.
The Likud accused Lapid of “pushing for an immediate end to the war without achieving total victory” in a Wednesday evening statement.
Yesh Atid responded, “Former prime minister Lapid is pushing for saving the hostages and bringing them home, and not to save Netanyahu and his extremist partners. The Likud, true to its habit, is confused – total victory means returning the hostages after a historic failure, not to stay in power and cling to one’s seat.”
Ben-Gvir had threatened to leave the government if the proposal for the hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza, which he called “negligent,” would go ahead.
Both National Unity and Otzma Yehudit threatened to leave the emergency government over a possible hostage deal for the release of Israelis being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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“A reckless deal equals dismantling the government,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X.
Lapid keen to serve as ‘safety net’ for Gaza hostage deal
Opposition leader and Yesh Atid Chairman MK Yair Lapid said soon after that his party would serve as a “safety net for any deal that will return the hostages to their homes.”
“Yesh Atid will not allow Netanyahu’s political problems to block a hostage deal that would bring them home,” the party wrote on X soon after. “Lapid said from day one that it would back any deal, and it will continue to do so. They must be returned home.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Lapid expressed the urgency for reaching a deal: “The first clause, the first line, in the contract between the state and its citizens, says that the state is responsible for their lives; not only for their health or the education of their children but for life in the most basic and simplest sense.”
“We have no way to bring our dead back to life, but we have to bring the hostages home, otherwise something very basic will crumble in our relationship with each other, in the relationship between a people and their country,” he continued, “certainly, in the fundamental trust between the citizens and the government. This must not happen. Some things are not up for debate.”
U.S. President Joe Biden meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv in October.Photo by AFP /via Getty Images
Days after the terrorist attack on Israel last autumn, U.S. President Joe Biden made a lightning visit to Jerusalem as a personal expression of support for the country and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Their embrace on the airport runway, whatever their acrimonious history, reflected Biden’s revulsion at the massacre and his commitment to a dazed, dispirited people. He was the portrait of the loyal ally: condemning the “pure evil” of the atrocity, reaffirming Israel’s right to self-defence, promising arms, providing intelligence, moving warships into the region.
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It was easier then, during that brief but decisive interlude — the three weeks or so between the crisis on Oct. 7 and the Israeli ground assault on Gaza on Oct. 27 (bombing began earlier). It was then that Israel was deciding how to respond.
Publicly and privately, Biden urged restraint. No doubt this was viscerally and politically unlikely amid the savagery. With every report of kidnapping, murder, torture and sexual assault, a scorched-earth response became all but certain.
Biden knew revenge is not a strategy. There were too many doubts. Would invading Gaza destroy Hamas, as Netanyahu promised? How many civilians would be collateral damage? What about the safety of the hostages? And what was the plan for Gaza following the military campaign?
Hussein Ibish, an analyst in Washington, warned that Israel was “walking into a trap.” He predicted it would respond disproportionately, killing Gazans at a rate of 10-to-1. He worried that laying waste to Gaza would impair the prospect of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and others, bringing international condemnation. All have happened.
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Thomas Friedman of the New York Times saw all that, and urged, in the short term, doing nothing. Forbearance was most likely to bring home the hostages, avoid a regional war and preserve a measure of goodwill. Reacting coolly, he said, would allow for other means, such as targeted raids, selected assassinations and the isolation of Hamas.
Biden knew that blind anger after Sept. 11 had pushed the United States into Afghanistan, then Iraq. It was America’s biggest foreign-policy failure since Vietnam.
Not that Israel would have listened. Netanyahu, who is responsible more than any other Israeli for the strategic, military and intelligence failure of the Oct. 7 attacks, promised to destroy Hamas. It was implausible. Meanwhile, his colleagues were threatening far worse, making the kind of biblical vows that zealots do, using language that now appears in legal briefs accusing Israel of “genocide,” however cynical and unsubstantiated.
And now, some three months later, we see how Israel’s fury has become its folly: 25,000 dead in Gaza, overwhelmingly innocents, almost 20 times Israel’s toll. A humanitarian crisis. Homes and hospitals destroyed. A people displaced. All for what? A few leaders assassinated? Some 9,000 fighters killed or captured, while even more of their ilk enlist?
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The network of tunnels remains largely intact. Many Israeli soldiers have died. A regional war looms. Thousands remain displaced within Israel while the economy suffers. Antisemitism flares everywhere. Hostages remain in captivity.
The war has been a disaster for Israel, which is struggling on the ground and in public opinion. It reels under the leadership of Netanyahu, who refuses to resign.
For Biden, the war has become a political albatross. It’s cost him support, from Arab-Americans in Michigan to young people who condemn Israel but, hypocritically, ignore Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine and Assad’s in Syria.
For weeks, Biden has been trying to get Netanyahu to moderate his position, and their relations have cooled. Biden cannot abide a war that goes on for months, led by an incompetent, messianic prime minister.
It may be that Biden will have to break with Netanyahu, who hopes he can do better with Donald Trump. Bibi’s appeal to Israelis: Only I can prevent a two-state solution imposed on us by the U.S.
Biden continues to be calm, quiet and reserved; curiously, he’s not retaliated for the recent deadly attacks on U.S. soldiers in Jordan. He refuses to be provoked. This is leadership.
Netanyahu, for his part, is weak, distrusted and desperate. He continues to put his self-preservation above anything else, trying Biden’s patience and inviting a rupture with Israel’s best friend.
At least two Turkish banks started closing the accounts of a “significant number” of Russian companies and banks after the U.S. threatened to blacklist them.https://t.co/JzpDiLvLyR
❗️More than 900 soldiers from the #Azov brigade, who defended #Mariupol for 86 days, are currently held captive by the Russians, as reported by Denys Prokopenko, the commander of the Ukrainian Azov Brigade. pic.twitter.com/a0QrnxDKRB
Биньямин Нетаньяху потребовал упразднить палестинское агентство ООН. По словам израильского премьера, оно полностью инфильтрировано ХАМАС. В секторе Газа необходима нейтральная гуманитарная организация, но агентство ООН такой не является, заявил Нетаньяху https://t.co/JZj8QmFIzn
On this day in 1793, Revolutionary France declares war on Great Britain ushering in 22 years of almost continuous conflict between the two powers. pic.twitter.com/glFLePkMVc
Just ahead of the inauguration of #JFK, Parade magazine ran this short, effective puff piece on #AllenDulles of the #CIA. Ronald W. May, author of the Dulles profile, had collaborated with the columnist #JackAnderson on his highly critical 1954 book about Senator Joe McCarthy. pic.twitter.com/qv8keKQxUZ
