Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must resign from his post if the world's six leading countries reach a bad agreement with Iran in Vienna, because it would be a personal failure for him, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid told his faction in the Knesset Monday. Lapid said he told American and European leaders in recent weeks that on Iran there is no opposition and coalition in Israel. But he said Netanyahu campaigned for three election cycles on the promise that he, and only he, can stop the deal with Iran and if he failed to prevent the deal, then he cannot escape responsibility. "If this bad deal is signed, it is a failure which has Netanyahu's name all over it," Lapid said. "His approach led us to a situation in which the American administration isn't willing to listen to our positions. His approach led not only the United States but also the other five powers involved in the negotiations – China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany - not to take into account Israel's concerns over the deal, concerns which are right and justified." Lapid also complained about decisions made Sunday by the government about the cancellation of Yesh Atid's conversion reform and the transfer of the Rabbinical courts from the Justice Ministry to the Religious Affairs Ministry. He said the two decisions were "an act of betrayal against women, new immigrants, and world Jewry. "We ask for Jews across the world, and especially in the United States, to support us on the Iranian issue, on security assistance and then we spit in their faces," he said. "The government of Israel said to them yesterday: Your conversion isn't a proper conversion, your Rabbis aren't proper Rabbis, your synagogues aren't proper synagogues. We're losing them because the government told them yesterday that they are second class Jews." Opposition leader Isaac Herzog accused Netanyahu of following up on what he called attacks on Israel's democratic nature with attacks on Israel's Jewish nature. "His decisions on religion and state are a declaration of war on Judaism in Israel," he said. "The embarrassing U-turn by the government will cause great rifts inside Israeli society." Herzog's number two in the Zionist Union, MK Tzipi Livni, said Netanyahu had "changed Israel from a Jewish state into the state of the ultra-Orthodox, just in order to hold on to power." She said Israel relies on world Jewry in many ways but allows the country's Jewish character to be dictated by the ultra-Orthodox.
