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Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid was extremely frustrated in an early morning post, in which he criticised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s lack of involvement in negotiations as Israel weren’t at the table for the final agreement by President Donald Trump, claiming it threatened Israel’s national security and future, noting that a full statement would come later.
Lapid later released the statement, saying: “In a few hours, or a day, or two, when he gets out of his bunker, he will try to sell you that the campaign in Iran was a success,” adding that would be a complete lie, because what happened is a ‘diplomatic disaster on a scale I do not remember – I do not remember such a political invasion.’
According to Lapid, Netanyahu led Israel into strategic collapse due to a toxic combination of arrogance, irresponsibility, lack of planning, and negligence on the home front – selling lies to the Americans that damaged trust between our two countries: “A military success that became a political disaster – Netanyahu reached the worst possible outcome, because the Iranian regime wasn’t defeated and the nuclear threat wasn’t removed,” adding that the ballistic missiles and Hezbollah’s rockets were still aimed at every home in Israel.
Lapid said the State of Israel went to this war with rare national consensus, confirming the public supported it from wall to wall, but after six weeks of casualties and citizens running to shelters, it became clear that Netanyahu couldn’t win a single campaign: “The Prime Minister deceived the citizens of Israel and deceived his partners, he sold it to the public in a series of threatrical press conferences, a strategic plan that did not exist.
Israel had no influence on the agreement that was signed last night, pointed out Lapid, saying: “They will tell you we influenced it behind the scenes – these are empty lies.”
Lapid said that Netanyahu had turned Israel into a client state, receiving instructions by phone on matters at the core of their national security policy, and at a critical moment for Israel’s security, they pushed him away from the table: “This war was waged as if the citizens of the State of Israel were the government’s cannon fodder – this government lost the Democrats, lost large parts of the Republicans, lost Europe.”
“The nuclear program still possesses a threat, the ballistic missile program was not obliterated, and we have replaced an 86-year-old Khamenei with a 56-year-old Khamenei – the regime in Iran is a terrorist organisation holding the entire country hostage,” Lapid said, continuing: “Israel should have built from day one a Middle Eastern military coalition against it, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and other states – this war should have ended with a regional conference presenting an alternative vision to the Iranian terror and advancing president Trump’s plan for Gaza, but that did not happen.”
Lapid claimed that as he spoke, roughly 440kg of enriched uranium remained hidden in the mountains of Iran, so this is not the outcome they expected, adding it was time to admit the truth, which is that Netanyahu had lost: “For too many years in power, Netanyahu pushed us from disaster to disaster – this time he pushed the United States into a war without any political vision on how to end it.”
