Special to WorldTribune.com
The leader of Israel’s Yesh Atid party said the Obama administration’s support for lifting sanctions on Iran “will translate to rockets aimed at our children.”
“The next conflict in the North or South of Israel is just a matter of time,” Yair Lapid said on Jan. 25 during a briefing to the foreign press in organized by the Jerusalem Press Club.
“Secretary of State [John] Kerry said himself last week that some of the sanctions relief will go to funding terrorism,” said Lapid, who founded Yesh Atid in 2012. “For us, this is not theoretical. This money will translate itself to rockets aimed at our children.”
Lapid, expected to run for prime minister in the next election, said Israel’s enemies are already prepping for the next conflict by digging terrorist tunnels in the Gaza Strip, some of them under the border and into Israel.
“The provocations, the breaches of international law, the preparations – are already happening every day by Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north, both with Iranian backing,” Lapid said. “When the next round of fighting breaks out, the analysis and the reporting shouldn’t start with the first Israeli strike, but with what’s happening on the ground right now.”
Lapid, attempting to establish himself as a centrist, said he backs separation from the Palestinians and supports the creation of a Palestinian state through an agreement and not unilateral steps.
“I come from a home with the legacy of the nationalist camp,” Lapid said in an interview with the Makor Rishon newspaper, adding that his father, former minister Yosef “Tommy” Lapid, was a follower of former prime minister Menachem Begin.
“I am enthusiastically in favor of annexing the Golan. My principle says maximum Jews on maximum land with maximum security and with minimum Palestinians.”