© Atef Safadi / Pool via APUS President Joe Biden and Israel's Prime Minister Yair Lapid sign a security pledge at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Jerusalem, July 14, 2022
Lapid made the comments on Monday at a faction meeting of his Yesh Atid opposition party, according to the Times of Israel. He argued that Netanyahu's government is destroying the alliance with the US by trying to pass controversial judicial reforms.
"The Israeli government is leading us into this crisis, making the biggest and most dramatic changes to the regime in our history, without holding a single discussion - not even one - about the economic, security, social and political consequences of the move," Lapid said. In a Channel 12 news interview, he argued that the nation is being "torn in two."
"The Americans say they have no shared values with this government. It affects every aspect of US-Israel relations - their attention and their willingness to leave their comfort zone for Israeli interests. They will not do it for the most extreme government in the country's history," Lapid said, describing relations with the US as being at a historic low.
US President Joe Biden said in March that he was "very concerned" about Israel's democracy amid months of protests over the proposed judicial overhaul. "I'm concerned they get this straight," he said at the time. "They cannot continue down this road."
Netanyahu responded by saying Israel is a sovereign country and makes decisions by the will of its people, "not based on pressures from abroad." His national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, said Biden "needs to understand that Israel is no longer a star on the US flag. We are a democracy, and I expect the US president to understand that."
More recently, the Biden administration criticized West Jerusalem's approval for a Jewish-only settlement in the occupied West Bank. Earlier this month, Biden blasted the Israeli government's cabinet as "extreme" and "part of the problem" in the Palestinian conflict.
On Monday, however, Biden issued a long-delayed invitation for Netanyahu to visit the White House later this year. Netanyahu spent 12 years as Israeli prime minister before a coalition led by Lapid ousted him from power in June 2021. He returned to office after winning the December 2022 election, the fifth parliamentary vote in four years.
Reader Comments
Best case scenario is for U.S. to eliminate dual U.S./Israeli citizenship. "No one can serve two masters."
You gotta figure when the two biggest bullies are no longer thinking along the same lines that the biggest bully is going to be the one that falls first. Then after that either way, the other bully will be truly left alone to whither upon false accolades and sense of exceptionalism. I reckon that is how zionism dies. The ideology of it is an idea so old-fashioned and 20th century remnant - is it not time for it to die permanently.
It seems like 109 countries memes are not tolerated!
But odds are Israel will sink first and irony is everybody everywhere in the whole world will raise their hands in celebratory cheer when that scourge of zionism dies. Irony is they made the corner of their death for themselves - that is the flaw of the concept and flawed ideologies always die when it is a WAR of ideas.