Israel's Finance Minister Yair Lapid expressed concern about the impact of growing anti-Israeli sentiment overseas on the country’s export-based economy.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Lapid said he was concerned that anti-Israel lobby groups in Europe were gaining more legitimacy to « do their thing’’ which, he said, ‘’ woud be more and more painful’’ to Israel economically.
He criticized as ‘’horrible’’ last month’s publication by the European Union of new guidelines banning Israeli entities beyond the Green Line from EU funding.
These guidelines had hurt prospects for reaching a peace deal with the Palestinians by emboldening radical groups that oppose a two-state solution, Lapid said.
‘’What does it say to the Islamic Jihad and Hamas and all those people who really want to stop the negotiation ?,’’ he asked. ‘’It allows them to go to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and tell him : ‘’See, you don’t need to do anything ; all you need to do is sit on the sidelines and wait until the Jewish state will suffocate from the international pressure.’’
According to the minister, whose centrist party Yesh Atid was the biggest winner of the January’s elections for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, ‘’there is a lot of plain anti-Semitism out there disguised as peace-loving, pro-whatevere-, 1960s kind of slogns that is huting us.’’