‘Moderate’ Netanyahu Alternative Who Met With Dems Wants Israel to Keep Expanding Its Borders
Yair Lapid, the opposition leader some Democrats believe will rescue Israel from extremism, said the nation should expand its territory to match "the Bible's borders" earlier this year.
Faced with mounting pressure from constituents to stop providing military support to Israel's genocidal wars, some Democrats in Congress who've long expressed unwavering support for the country are hoping that its elections this fall could provide a reset.
On Wednesday, a clique of Democrats met with former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a leader of the opposition coalition aiming to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose far-right government's unapologetic pursuit of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians and push toward indefinite occupation of southern Lebanon have made support among liberals increasingly untenable.
Lapid has described the ascendancy of his coalition as an opportunity for Democrats who'd recently voted against measures to provide Israel with weapons aid to wipe the slate clean and restore the status quo of ironclad bipartisan support that Israel had enjoyed for decades.
At the meeting, arranged by the staunch Israel supporter Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Lapid said he urged the Democrats in the room, which included Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), Maggie Hassan (NH), Cory Booker (NJ), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Alex Padilla (Calif.), John Hickenlooper (Colo.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), according to The Jerusalem Post, "not to give up on Israel and to show solidarity in the face of its challenges."
Lapid is often portrayed in the Western press as a more "moderate" alternative to Netanyahu and his coalition of religious nationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties. Lapid is comparatively secular and has criticized Netanyahu's assaults on institutions like the courts, while showing himself more open to aligning with Israel's marginalized Arab parties.
But on the questions that have led Israel to lose favor with American voters—those of Israel's aggressive warmaking—Lapid has expressed views that seem hardly less extreme than those of the current government, including the idea that Israel should continue to expand its borders across the Middle East in accordance with biblical texts.
The idea that Israel should wage wars of conquest against its neighbors was once confined to the fringes, but has become mainstream in recent years with the support of far-right figures in Netanyahu's government, like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who've pushed for Israel to expand its illegal settlements in the West Bank and begin moving settlers into Gaza and Lebanon after they're depopulated of their inhabitants.
In February, Lapid was asked during a press conference if he agreed with a statement by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee that the state had a religious right to seize all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers.
Per Middle East Eye, he responded as follows:
"I support anything that will allow the Jews a large, broad, strong land and a safe haven for us, our children and our children's children. That I support," he told a Kipa News reporter.
When asked "How broad?" Lapid responded: "As broad as possible."
He added that there were practical "considerations of security and policy and time," but said Israeli territory could expand as far as Iraq.
"Zionism is based on the Bible, our mandate over the land of Israel is biblical, the biblical borders of Israel are very clear," he said. "I believe our ownership deed over the land of Israel is the Bible, therefore the borders are the Bible's borders."
Rania Khalek, a journalist and commentator at BreakThrough News, warned that by viewing Lapid as a palatable alternative to Netanyahu, Democrats were aligning themselves with "violent colonial religious fanaticism... despite the fact that their base overwhelmingly despises this Greater Israel settler project."
Remarking on his comments endorsing the idea of Israeli expansion into Iraq, she marveled that "Yair Lapid is supposedly the liberal opposition to Netanyahu. Yet he sounds just like Ben-Gvir here."
Lapid has been nominally critical of Netanyahu's policy toward Gaza, but largely only from a tactical perspective rather than a humanitarian one.
He defended Israel against criticism as it imposed a "complete siege" that cut off food, water, and electricity from the strip in October 2023, and claimed most killed in Gaza were "terrorists"; supported legislation aimed at crippling the main United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, and endorsed President Donald Trump's idea of permanently removing the residents of Gaza.
Lapid has also been a strong proponent of war with Iran, praising Trump and Netanyahu's strikes in late February as a "just war against evil" and calling for the nation's leadership to be "obliterated." During a speech earlier this week, he endorsed the idea of striking Iran's energy infrastructure, calling it "the right thing to do in the long term."
While serving as prime minister in 2022, Lapid signaled rhetorical support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians, a marked difference from Netanyahu, who has long been adamantly against it. However, the man likely to become prime minister if Lapid's coalition wins, former premier Naftali Bennett, has long opposed a Palestinian state, recently calling it a "huge mistake."
