Yair Lapid on CNN. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org – Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin of the Likud Beiteinu party sharply criticized Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid on Wednesday for his comments stating that Palestinians do not need to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

In an interview with Charlie Rose on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday, Lapid said, “I don’t feel we need a declaration from the Palestinians that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state… The whole concept, to me, of the State of Israel is that we recognize ourselves, that after 2,000 years of being dependent on other people.”

But Elkin believes that the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the fact that the Palestinians do not recognize Israel’s right to exist, the same position expressed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a major address at Bar-Ilan University on Oct. 6. Until the Palestinians make this recognition, “any peace agreement will become just another step in [former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser] Arafat’s infamous staged plan to throw us in the sea,” Elkin said, according to the Jerusalem Post.