Lapid asks ambassadors to recognize Israeli control over Golan

Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid took some 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats from around the world to the border between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Updated: MAY 25, 2018 03:09
Yair Lapid speaks while touring the Golan Heights, May 24th, 2018. (Credit: Yair Zivan)
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid took some 40 ambassadors and senior diplomats from around the world to the border between Israel and Lebanon on Thursday and asked them to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
Lapid came with former senior security officials, including former Mossad deputy head Ram Ben-Barak, former head of IDF’s Northern Command Yossi Peled, and Moshe Kaplinsky, who was IDF deputy chief of staff during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
“We came here to show them the complexity of the northern arena, in which [in addition to Lebanon on another side, there is] Syria on one side, which is having more and more Iranian boots on the ground as they deploy in the territory and Hezbollah, the biggest terror organization on earth, aiming at us more than 100,000 missiles in long range, middle range – and some of them accurate,” Lapid said.
The diplomats were from Great Britain, Canada, France, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Italy, Argentina and other countries, as well as the European Union. Lapid has led an effort in the EU to make Hezbollah, which became stronger in Lebanon’s election, illegal in Europe.
“We wanted to tell the [diplomats] that Israel doesn’t want to go to war but if the Iranians establish themselves in Syria, the war will be inevitable,” Lapid said. “Now we can see how ridiculous and absurd the idea is that Israel will evacuate the Golan Heights and give it to a mass murderer who is cooperating with Iran and Hezbollah.”
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog also toured the North on Thursday, at the invitation of the Northern Command.
“Iran wants there to be two fronts against Israel on the Lebanese and Syrian borders,” Herzog said on the tour. “Therefore there must be caution and preparedness on each of the fronts and take steps to prevent this from happening.”