Lapid Announces His Own Road Map for Peace

Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid has a peace plan that he says will ensure security and quiet both for Israelis and Palestinians – but the details will have to wait. Speaking over the weekend at the Saban Forum in Washington, Lapid said that his plan “will return order to the Middle East” by providing both Israelis and Palestinians with secure, self-determination that will not entail either “stepping on each other’s toes.”

“We must reach a regional agreement that will get the Palestinians out of our lives,” Lapid said. “I do not speak of tearing down walls between us and the Palestinians, but of building even higher walls. We have waited 40 years for the ‘right time’ to advance peace with the Palestinians – and we have waited long enough. We need to do this now, the time is right.

“Israel cannot and does not need to try and assimilate 3.5 million Palestinians, not if it wants to remain a Jewish and democratic state,” Lapid said. “This (Ed: plan) is the way to restore order to the Middle East.”

In response to a question by reporters, Lapid said that while he had a map of what Israel would look like under his plan, he would not present it at this time. He also declined to say whether or not he would attempt to remove Jews from their homes in Yehudah and Shomron.

Previously, then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman proposed excluding Arabs in areas such as the Triangle and the Umm el-Faham regions from Israel, by moving the border fence west in order to “transfer” them to Palestinian areas.  His proposals were met with riots by Arab residents of those areas, who insisted that they wanted to remain Israeli citizens.

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