Israeli opposition leader seeks support in Washington

The leader of the Israeli opposition, the founder of the Yesh Atid party and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid visited the United States on April 11, where he met with representatives of the American Jewish diaspora. The meeting came amid a smoldering intra-Israeli political conflict over judicial reform initiated and then frozen by the ruling coalition led by Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Lapid’s visit coincided with the recent aggravation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which led to rocket attacks on Israeli territory, and then to the bombing of Gaza and southern Lebanon by the Israeli army.

Netanyahu, a traditional partner of the American Republicans, was never invited to Washington by the Democratic administration of the White House. US President Joe Biden, in the midst of the largest protests in Israeli history at the end of March, said that he would not “invite Netanyahu to the White House in the near future.” At the same time, it was in March of this year that the electorate of the ruling US Democratic Party, for the first time in history, began to sympathize more with the Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli conflict. According to a March 16 Gallup poll, among Democratic supporters, 49% sympathize with the Palestinians, and 38% with the Israelis. Among the supporters of the Republicans, 78% sympathize with the Israelis, only 11% – with the Palestinians. Most Americans, on average, still sympathize more with Israel (54%) versus 31% for the Palestinians.