Yair Lapid’s Peace Proposal

Yair Lapid’s Peace Proposal

Though he has been called a “lightweight” and worse than that (“an “empty suit, “a political cipher,” a “leftist,” a” credulous talk-show host lacking any experience in security or management”), Yair Lapid is the underrated politician commanding the Knesset’s second largest party with 24 seats (17.78% of the vote=852, 309 voters. Netanyahu’s Likud, in first place, holds 23.41% of the Knesset seats =1,122 191voters)

Lapid’s fluid political view is fueled by his conviction that: “there are no simple answers to complex questions; there is only the intelligent and level-headed management of changing situations.”

In other words, as the Israeli philosopher Micah Goodman has noted, in Israel, “those on the political right are unwilling to seriously consider proposals, plans, and ideas that come from the left, and why? Because they come from the left. Those on the left who are allergic to anything that has a scent of the right have a hard time evaluating whether a certain right-wing idea could work and improve the world.” These unbending binary ideological stances hold that some positions are always correct and others are never correct.

Lapid, who hangs on his office’s wall the photo of the late left-wing Labor Zionism leader David Ben-Gurion and the liberal nationalist revisionist Menachem Begin, sees himself in the narrow space between them, right in the middle. It is his way of stating that people who disagree can still work together in pursuit of a common goal.

 The former TV host and actor founded the Yesh Atid (“There’s Future”) political party in 2012, not to look for the ideal way of life based on an ideology but, instead, to create the conditions that could allow different ways of life to coexist.

Since then, the now former 14^th Prime Minister of Israel, Economy Minister and Foreign Minister, and the head of the opposition in the Knesset gave Israel (and the world) to taste his idea when he orchestrated the 2021 “government of change.”

Though short-lived, as most initial trials usually are, the governing coalition put together with Naftali Bennett was the most ideologically diverse coalition in Israel’s history. It comprised eight widely disparate parties: three from the right, two from the center, two from the left, and one Arab party.

Lapid showed that- in his words- “the center is the only reasonable solution in the twenty-first century because it at least bothers to stay updated and connected to the changes happening in the world.”

Paraphrasing Bill Clinton’s strategist James Carville, Lapid put it more prosaically (or philosophically)

“It’s not the thesis, it’s not the antithesis, it’s the synthesis, stupid.”

Speaking at the Mitvim Institute’s Strategies of Hope conference in Tel Aviv on November 21, Lapid proposed a comprehensive peace plan that would begin with the release of all the hostages from Gaza

Then, a six-month halt to the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon would be instituted.

During the truce, an Emirati-Egyptian-Moroccan-PA force would enter Gaza and take over the distribution of humanitarian aid and rebuilding.

Israel would state clearly that it has no intention of resettling Gaza or remaining in southern Lebanon but would reserve the right to operate beyond its borders.

Within a month, Lapid said, Saudi Arabia would host a conference with Israel, the US, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority to work out five agreements

1. Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah will retreat 9-10 kilometers from the border with Israel, and the Lebanese Armed Forces, backed by the US and France, will move into southern Lebanon
2. The United Kingdom and France will train the Lebanese Armed Forces in southern Lebanon, and its soldiers will receive a monthly salary of $500 for conscripts and $1,000 for officers -up from the $220 a month average currently receiving (the average Hezbollah operative paid some $1,300 a month)
3. The civil governance of Gaza will be overseen by a body comprising Saudi, Egyptian, European, and American officials and officials from Arab countries that are party to the Abraham Accords between Israel, Morocco, the UAE, and Bahrain. The body will be augmented by a “symbolic” civilian delegation from the PA, which will be barred from accessing funds or choosing other officials.

• 4. A regional coalition will act through military or diplomatic means to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and from achieving regional hegemony through its armed proxy network.
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• 5. .Israel will deepen its ties with Saudi Arabia and the Abraham Accords countries through joint professional committees devoted to specific topics based on the Negev Forum Regional Cooperation Framework.
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• A declaration will be made that the participants will work for a “future separation” between Israel and the Palestinians, pending reforms in the PA.

In Lapid’s vision, the PA will commit to fighting terrorism and incitement, and Israel will commit to refrain from annexing the West Bank, on which the PA plans a future Palestinian state.

As prime minister in 2022, Lapid stood at the podium in the United Nations General Assembly and stated: “An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy, and for the future of our children. Peace is not a compromise. It is the most courageous decision we can make.””

He dismisses the argument that Hamas cannot be annihilated because ideas cannot be destroyed; he has said that bad ideas can be vanquished:

“Nazism was a bad idea, and therefore we have eliminated it. Communism was a terrible idea, at least the Russian concept, and the world has succeeded in eliminating this idea. Hamas is a horrible idea. It should be eliminated.”

Yet, he believes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is “still not psychologically ready for an agreement with Israel, either partial or full.” Consequently, his position is that though eventuallytens of thousands of Jews would someday be uprooted from what he described as “remote settlements” in the West Bank; he said that presently, Israel should not change its policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank to revive the stalemated peace process and that Jerusalem should not serve as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Considered the first Israeli leader to articulate coherent centrist politics, he has defined the core of this centrist mission as upholding the integrity of Jewish and democratic Israel.

He sees Haredim as partners in the Israeli future. He has reached out to the Haredi community (who refuses to participate in any coalition led by Lapid), seeking dialogue, even as he insists that its relationship with the state must change.

As Economy minister, he moved to reshape the welfare system that gives money to Haredi men who study religious texts instead of seeking paid employment (subsequent administrations reversed most of his changes.)

During the recent discussion of the Haredi draft bill based on the Israel Defense Forces’ request for additional drafting of 22,000 soldiers to replace some 11,000 war-injured soldiers alongside 750 killed and a 10,000 shortage, Lapid argued for Yeshiva students. There is no manpower pool of this size to recruit from other than military-age ultra-Orthodox men, he said.

“You cannot solve this with political maneuvering because it is happening in the real world… the real world in which money doesn’t grow on trees, and the real world in which there are no other 18-year-olds who are healthy and can be part of the existential effort we are engaged in.

Lapid has also argued that the failure to require Haredi schools to teach core curriculum subjects meant that Haredi men would continue to face severe difficulties entering the job market even if they wanted to.

In the end, Lapid is aware that the center’s primary challenge, as a political force, is to explain that moderation is not a compromise between world views and that, according to him,  “it is the only world view that can address the challenges of this era.”