Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid has told Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee that he backed the Israeli decision to launch strikes against Iran.
Speaking via video link from Israel, Lapid told the MPs that he was a “a vocal opponent of the current Israeli government” and that he considered prime minister Netanyahu “a bitter political rival, we loudly disagree on almost everything”, but the two were in full agreement on the need to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“I saw the intelligence; we were facing an existential threat. I supported the goals of the operation”, said the 61-year-old.
After short opening remarks, he joked “I saw the Iranian ambassador spoke for 10 minutes, I took less of your time”, referencing a lengthy statement by the Iranian representative, who was grilled by the committee last week.
Questioned by MPs, Lapid claimed that Iran’s increased defence manufacturing “would have allowed them to have more ballistic missiles than Russia in less than two years. We have hit all this, and it is a good thing.”
“The world is a safer place than it was 12 days ago”, he added.
According to Israel’s opposition leader, the scale of the potential threat to Israel meant the country felt compelled to act.
“Iran has revived its weapons group that was out of the game since the 2000s. This was done with the direct order of the Supreme Leader. Not only were they enriching uranium, not only had they developed the next generation of centrifuges … they were running for a bomb”.
Questioned by Labour MP Alex Ballinger about whether the action was legal, Lapid retorted: “What is the committee’s position on an atomic bomb exploding in Israel in terms of international law?”
Israel’s former prime minister added he felt conflicted “whether or not to raise Holocaust arguments in discussions like this”, but said the decision wasn’t based on speculation.
“We saw the intelligence that tells us that Iran is rushing to a bomb and international law can’t do anything about it … and we thought that we can’t sit on our hands”, Lapid told the committee.
Lapid, who has also served as Israel’s foreign minister and finance minister, was scathing of Iran’s modus operandi in global settings, accusing them of masking their true intentions.
“The Iranians are lying. And the Iranians are doing this using a vocabulary that the West is fond of. They are talking about international law while oppressing the young and the women and the LGBTQ community. They’re talking about democracy while they’re not a democracy.
“They’re talking about two sides of an equation, while there are no two sides of an equation. This is a regime we have no problem with that says they want to kill all the Jews because they’re Jews because this is the deep, radical twisted version of Islam”, he added.
However, Lapid admitted that the impact that US and Israeli strikes against Iran had on their nuclear programme were not yet fully known.
Addressing reports that Iran might have smuggled highly enriched uranium out of sites targeted by Israel and the US, he told MPs that “we think the majority of it might be gone, but not everything. And we know they’re going to do their best to gather their material”.
The former TV host said that he backed an international nuclear agreement with Iran, but one that was “better than the JCPOA”, which President Trump withdrew from in 2018 and which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu objected to.
Lapid said that any future agreement had to have five basic conditions: no uranium enrichment inside Iran, no centrifuges, all enriched uranium has to be deposited outside of Iran, no ballistic missile programme and unlimited supervision.
MPs also questioned the Yesh Atid party leader on Gaza, where he was far more critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“The Israeli government was way too busy in victimising themselves instead of explaining to the world what is it that we do and what enemy we are facing and what are the circumstances that led to the tragedy in Gaza”, he told the committee.
Questioned by East Renfrewshire MP Blair McDougall, he attacked what he saw as “cynical and political” reasons as to why Netanyahu and his ministers hadn’t apologised for civilian casualties in Gaza.
“They have neglected their duty, not only as a government but as human beings, you mentioned the Jewish congregation in your area – this also has to do with Jewish morals – to say ‘we are sorry for the loss of life in Gaza. We are sorry for every child that has died in Gaza’. Children should not die in grown-ups’ wars and we’re going to do our best in order to prevent this.”
The fact that Israel was “fighting a horrible enemy in a very densely populated area that is using its own children as human shields”, shouldn’t detract from the need to apologise for civilian casualties, he added.
Despite being a supporter of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, Hamas’ atrocities on October 7 “pushed back” any prospect of it in the immediate future.
“In order to discuss the two-state solution, the Palestinians have to prove to us that this doesn’t become the base of the next attack against the Israeli people, against the innocent women and children who were attacked on October 7”, Lapid told MPs.
