Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, May 26, 2021. (Credit: File photo Jack Guez/AFP)
BEIRUT —Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday criticized the proposed resolution of the border dispute between Lebanon and Israel, approved earlier in the day by both countries.
"This is not a historic agreement but a historic capitulation," Netanyahu commented in a Facebook live statement, accusing the current Prime Minister, his rival Yair Lapid, of caving to pressure from pro-Iranian Hezbollah and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, who is scheduled to speak Tuesday evening.
"He who capitulates to Nasrallah cannot be Prime Minister ... Israel cannot allow itself to have an amateur and weak Prime Minister," Netanyahu hammered, repeating his threat to not honor the agreement if he returns to power.
Israeli Parliamentary elections are scheduled for Nov. 1 and Netanyahu has a strong chance of forming a coalition government, according to opinion polls in Israel.
After intense negotiations led by the United States, Israel announced it had reached a "historic" agreement with Lebanon to delimit their maritime border and remove key obstacles to the development of gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean.
Lebanese president Michel Aoun said he hoped the agreement would be "announced as soon as possible."