Netanyahu made Israel a branch of Republican Party
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has damaged Israel’s future by aligning the country too closely with the US Republican Party, which may end up losing the presidency and controlling neither house of Congress after November, opposition leader Yair Lapid warned at Thursday’s Jerusalem Post Conference.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post’s editor- in- chief Yaakov Katz, Lapid criticized Netanyahu for not meeting with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden when he went to Washington to sign diplomatic agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
“It’s against the tradition,” Lapid said. “Usually when an Israeli prime minister goes to Washington so close to an election, he would call on both candidates. It is part of a bigger problem. Under Netanyahu, Israel is no longer a bipartisan issue anymore. Israel has become a branch of the Republican party.”
Lapid called US President Donald Trump “a great friend of Israel” but said Biden has an impeccable voting record on Israel in the Senate. He said Netanyahu should have driven two hours to Biden’s home in Delaware to see the man who may become president of the United States.
“He made a mistake of moving Israel from bipartisanship,” he said. “The people running Netanyahu’s policies on the US are donors to the Republicans.”
He warned that the next US administration, Senate and Congress could be led by Democrats who are “extremely angry at Israel’s government.”
Regarding Israeli politics, he said his former political ally Benny Gantz would never become prime minister due to his political support which is low “because he put Netanyahu in power.”
Lapid said the public would hold Netanyahu responsible for his handling of the crisis over the coronavirus and what Lapid called “a cascade of bad decisions.”
“There is no way of hiding from the fact that this government and prime minister completely failed in handling the COVID- 19 crisis,” he said. “It’s bad management of someone in power way too long and no longer capable of running a country in a time of crisis.”