The Kehalat Forum petitioned the High Court today (Tuesday) against the apparent signing of the surrender agreement to Hezbollah regarding the determination of Israel’s maritime border with Lebanon and the distribution of gas profits between the countries.
The Ecclesiastical Forum submitted a request to issue a conditional order that would prevent the government from voting tomorrow on the approval of the agreement, and this after changing the matter of a petition that the government must respond to by October 27, 2022 against putting the agreement into practice during an election period and without getting it approved by the Knesset. The congregation claims in their petition today that the government wants to establish facts on the ground and approve the agreement even before it responded to the previous petition and before a hearing on the petition took place.
Judge David Mintz ordered the government to respond to the ecclesiastical request to issue an interim order by tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:00 am.
As I recall, the agreement was signed after Hezbollah threatened to start a war and Lapid surrendered and accepted the terrorist organization’s demands.
Former Prime Minister Netanyahucommented this evening on Lapid’s surrender agreement: “For over a decade, the governments under my leadership did not surrender to Nasrallah’s threats – and we did not accept a war. Until Lapid arrived. Within three months, Lapid completely surrendered to all of Hezbollah’s demands.
On the day Lapid entered the Prime Minister’s office, Nasrallah sent drones to a gas rig in our territory – something he did not dare to do under the governments headed by me. He threatened Lapid: “By force of arms I will force Israel to surrender in negotiations.”
Lapid was frightened – and surrendered. Lapid, who opposed the gas plan that my friends and I brought for the benefit of the citizens of Israel – a plan that turned Israel into a world gas power – is now rushing to take the gas out of the water in favor of Hezbollah.
And how does Lapid try to justify the surrender? He says that it is required in order to get the gas out of “Shark”.
I would like to remind Lapid that the “Shark” reservoir is deep within our territory, that development work there began 5 years ago, and that we never dreamed of asking permission from Nasrallah to operate it.
As David Friedman, the former US ambassador who dealt with the issue, said: “Lebanon got 100%, Israel got 0”. he was right. This is not a historical agreement, it is a historical surrender – liquidation sale of Lapid.
Whoever surrenders to Hezbollah like this cannot be prime minister. He will not be able to deal with Iran’s race for nuclear weapons, and with the destabilization of the world order following the crisis in Ukraine.
Faced with the multitude of threats that Israel faces, the new equation created by Lapid, according to which threats are met with surrender, is a strategic danger to Israel’s security. My friends and I acted differently. We did not give in to threats, we removed the gas from the sea, and we brought about the most peaceful security decade in Israel’s history.
We will return to Israel a strong, experienced and responsible leadership, which will restore deterrence to Israel, and I emphasize without being dragged into unnecessary adventures.
We will handle this matter with the same responsibility and the same determination, as we handled other bad agreements we inherited from the leftist governments in the past. In this tumultuous time, Israel cannot afford an amateurish and weak prime minister. Once was enough for us.”