Tag Archives: Israeli politics

In 2021, I wrote a Lib Dem Voice article warning that our Party’s stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is misaligned with that of our ‘sister’ party in Israel, Yesh Atid.

Over four years later, those concerns have not diminished. Yesh Atid continues to pay occasional lip service to a two-state solution. In practice, however, the party has repeatedly aligned itself with the assumptions and priorities of the Israeli nationalist mainstream, while failing to meaningfully challenge, and at times actively enabling, the blatantly illegal actions of the Netanyahu-Smotrich-Ben Gvir government. Lapid’s hardline rhetoric on territorial expansion and Palestinian statehood, admonishment of the ICC arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, and most recently his formalised political alliance with right-wing nationalist Naftali Bennett in a joint party list entitled ‘together’ (Be-Yachad) all point in the same direction. Whereas Yesh Atid adopts a liberal stance on certain domestic matters in Israel, including protections for the queer community, it is clearly not offering a liberal alternative on the question of Palestine.

In February this year, Lapid expressed support for expanding the Israeli state to its “biblical borders.” suggesting that Israeli territory could one day extend as far as Iraq. Months earlier, responding to the recognition of Palestine by the UK, Portugal, Australia and Canada, Lapid described the move as “a diplomatic disaster, a bad move and a reward for terror.” These are not the words of a man truly committed to the two-state solution.

Nor has this rhetoric been merely symbolic. In October 2025, Yesh Atid MKs voted in favour of annexing Maale Adumim, one of the largest and most strategically significant Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, despite annexation being clearly prohibited under international law.