Yair Lapid travels to France upon Macron's invite

The two men will discuss the Israeli-Palestinian and Iranian issues and the fight against antisemitism in Europe.

By GIL HOFFMAN
Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz speaking with Blue and White Party supporters, 2019. (photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI)
Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz speaking with Blue and White Party supporters, 2019.
(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI)
The Blue and White Party’s No. 2 candidate Yair Lapid visited Paris on Friday at the invitation of French president Emmanuel Macron, who met with him at the Élysée Palace.
The two discussed the Israeli-Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese and Iranian issues and the fight against antisemitism in Europe.
The visit is seen as a counterweight against the invitations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received from US president Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Sources close to Netanyahu responded that “It is not surprising that Macron, who led the way on the Iran deal, meets during an election with Lapid, who supported the deal.”
French parliament member Meir Habib, who is a personal friend of Netanyahu, said he was disturbed by Macron interfering in the election but not surprised after Macron’s administration condemned the American recognition of Israeli control over the Golan Heights and votes in UNESCO to declare the Temple Mount and Western Wall Muslim holy sites.
Lapid told The Jerusalem Post in an interview in Tel Aviv last Sunday that the international community is sick of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and wants the Blue and White Party to form the next government.
Lapid has traveled the world and built up strong ties with a variety of world leaders. If Blue and White wins Tuesday’s general election, he would be foreign minister under Benny Gantz for the first two-and-a-half years and prime minister for the following year and a half as part of the power-sharing agreement they reached when they formed the party.
“Many of the world leaders I am in touch with desperately want Netanyahu to go,” Lapid said. “Bibi has a problem with the Democratic Party, the more moderate Republicans, the majority of US Jews and the European Union – except [for] some Eastern European countries, especially Poland to whom he shamelessly surrendered the memory of the Jews who died there in WWII. He is doing well in some parts of Africa, Latin America and [with] the American president.”