Foreign Minister and Prime Minister-designate Yair Lapid and Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz spoke with political journalists for two hours on Monday. The two reiterated the warning that in 2022, the international community would accuse Israel of being an apartheid state. They just did not provide any proof as to why, to their minds, they believed this threat would suddenly become such a pressing issue in 2022.
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After all, efforts to delegitimize Israel have been going on for decades. In the most difficult years of this campaign, when Barack Obama was the US president and Benjamin Netanyahu Israel's prime minister, Israel overcame efforts to slander it. Today, the government has been embraced by the West, and as a result, Lapid has prided himself on the diplomatic momentum he says he created and the ties he claims to have restored. How can he threaten us with such a nightmare scenario when things are going so great? Something does not make sense.
Let us assume that the danger is real and the threat is warranted. There are two paths of action a foreign minister can take. They can contact European leaders and demand they halt their funding of the campaign. After all, "the Israeli apartheid" campaign did not just appear out of thin air. The EU and European states provide it with generous funding both in Israel and overseas. Without these funds, the campaign would come to a halt. Instead of chasing the flames, turn off the oil tap. This would lead the "disgusting lie," as Lapid described it, to dry up on its own.
Lapid is wrong to bring the issue to the forefront of the agenda. The very public discussion of the issue plays right into the slanderers' hands. The Palestinians are at an unprecedented low. Barely anyone cares about them right now. It would be a major mistake to think dialogue with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would moderate the risk. Poking around inside the Palestinian wound will only increase delegitimization efforts. The Abraham Accords, which Lapid correctly aspires to build on, are empiric proof that Israel does not need ties with the Palestinians to improve its standing in the world. On the contrary.
Nor are the Palestinians relevant to the "Israeli apartheid" campaign. The argument relates to what transpires within the borders of Little Israel, in the Arab sector, in mixed cities, and the entire territory "from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea."
Talks with Abbas have not and will not prevent the next Human Rights Watch report on the mixed Jewish-Arab cities of Ramle or Lod. It would therefore be better to reassess whether there is in fact a problem, and if so, to provide a relevant response to the issue instead of offering up solutions that have long been devoid of any meaning.
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