In stark contrast to the current political trend, when most of the young Knesset members chosen in the last elections are focused on the socio-economic agenda in the spirit of the 2011 social protests, Secretary-General of the Labor Party and Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Hilik Bar is actually marching with the tattered banner of the diplomatic process. When others worked to establish a Knesset lobby to address the cost of living and the housing crisis, Bar started the “Lobby for the Promotion of a Solution for the Israeli-Arab Conflict,” which supports the concept of two states for two peoples.

On Sunday morning, July 14, by virtue of his position as secretary-general of the Labor Party, Bar stood beside party Chairperson Shelly Yachimovich at a press conference where she announced early party primaries. Bar believes that this is the right move to get the embattled party back on an even keel. However, with all due respect to internal party politics, he dedicates a great deal of his time behind the scenes, working with other Knesset members to promote a meaningful political effort to promote the two-state solution. On Wednesday, July 17, he is expected to submit a precedential bill according to which the final status of the Palestinian territories and sovereignty over them will be settled in accordance with the "two states for two peoples" principle. 

Al-Monitor:  You’re an odd bird among the young members of the Knesset. You opted to promote an issue met with indifference by most of the Israeli public as opposed to social issues that get people to take to the street.

Bar:  I started the lobby because, as opposed to what we see in this Knesset, there is a clear and solid majority for the two-state solution — something that hasn’t been the case since 1992 in the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s second term. The tragedy is that there’s a majority in the Knesset and every public-opinion poll shows a majority, there’s just no majority in the government. That’s a structured dissonance.