NEW YORK — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid used his U.N. General Assembly address to voice his support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict for the first time, becoming the first Israeli prime minister to endorse such a solution since 2017.
“We have only one condition: That a future Palestinian state will be a peaceful one,” Lapid said Thursday. “That it will not become another terror base from which to threaten the well-being, and the very existence, of Israel.”
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Lapid, whose Yesh Atid political party formed a coalition government in 2020 with Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett‘s New Right, also criticized Iran amid unrest after the death of a woman arrested by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s so-called “morality police” for not completely covering her hair.
“If the Iranian regime gets a nuclear weapon, they will use it,” he said. “The only way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, is to put a credible military threat on the table. And then — and only then — to negotiate a longer and stronger deal with them.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is expected to address the General Assembly Friday but is not anticipated to meet with Lapid.
Lapid has met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and new British Prime Minister Liz Truss, among others, during his trip to New York. Truss reportedly told Lapid she is considering relocating her Israeli Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
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“Christianity in the holy city is under fire. The rights of churches in Jerusalem are threatened. This cannot continue,” King Abdullah II told the General Assembly before meeting Lapid.
