Livni and Lapid should back Palestinian unity government

In the spring of 2011, just a day after Hamas and Fatah made one of their announcements that they would be establishing a National Unity government, a senior journalist wrote the following on his Facebook page: “Hamas and Fatah have announced a National Unity government. The right immediately lined up as ‘Against,’ while the left lined up ‘For,’ and both sides are shouting ‘I told you so!’ at each other.” The journalist wondered why no one dared say, “It happened just now. I still have no idea what it means. Ask me in two or three weeks, and maybe I’ll know more, because I’m trying not to respond on auto-pilot.” He signed the piece with the question: “Why aren’t we fed up already with being so predictable?”

The name of that journalist was Yair Lapid, and he is Minister of Finance and a member of the Security Cabinet. On June 2 of this year he raised his hand to vote in support of the Cabinet decision to suspend negotiations with the Palestinians over a permanent arrangement, and he did that just a few hours after the national reconciliation government between Hamas and Fatah was sworn into office. He joined the other ministers who authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to impose sanctions on the Palestinian Authority (PA) because, in the words of the Cabinet decision, it was, “responsible for all actions that harm the security of Israel which originate in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip.” Lapid, the chairman of Yesh Atid, did not appeal the decision, even after it was discovered that the temporary Palestinian government did not include a single member of Hamas, and that its mandate was limited to rehabilitating the Gaza Strip and preparing for elections in the Occupied Territories.