Israeli opposition slams prime minister's UN speech on 2-state solution

Israeli opposition and right-wing parties slammed the speech by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid at the UN General Assembly in which he threw his support behind the two-state solution.

Lapid on Thursday said he supports the two-state solution on condition that the Palestinian side will commit to creating a "peaceful state" that will not threaten Israel's security.

Benjamin Netanyahu, main opposition leader and head of the Likud Party, decried Lapid's speech and vowed he "will not allow this."

"Lapid is bringing the Palestinians back to the forefront of the world stage and putting Israel right into the Palestinian pit," he said in a statement cited by the Times of Israel news website.

The Likud chief accused Lapid of awarding the Palestinians "a terrorist state in the heart of the country [Israel], a state that will threaten us all."

The head of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, Bezalel Smotrich, also slammed Lapid's speech, adding his statement was "a shameful surrender to terrorism."

Alternate Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also criticized Lapid for backing the two-state solution at his UN speech.

On the other hand, the Israeli leftist parties, including the Meretz Party, hailed Lapid's speech describing it as "historic."

Meretz Party head, Zahava Galon, said on Twitter that the two-state solution will "put an end to the cycle of bloodshed, to end control over millions of Palestinians."

Israeli Public Security Minister Omer Barlev, of the center-left Labor Party, welcomed Lapid's speech as "moving and impressive."

In 1993, the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel signed the Oslo agreement, which gave Palestinians a form of civil rule, but negotiations failed to complete the agreement and lead to a Palestinian state.

Peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis collapsed in April 2014 as Tel Aviv refused to stop settlement building and release Palestinian detainees imprisoned before 1993.