The Knesset held an event Monday afternoon to mark the one-year anniversary the Abraham Accords with the participation of the architects of the peace agreements, Jared Kushner and Avi Berkowich, as well as Kushner's wife Ivanka Trump. The Moroccan ambassador to Israel is also taking part alongside them.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said at the event that during his meetings in Washington he would deal, among other things, with expanding the agreements. "One of my topics on my trip tonight to Washington, is the expansion of the number of countries in this agreement. The Abraham Accords will go down in history as one of the moments when people chose life. The new government in Israel not only accepted and embraced Abraham Accords, it moved them forward. It made them a lever of a new reality: economic, security and political."
Lapid thanked opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and former US President Trump for leading the agreements. "I want to thank President Trump for his part in the agreements and thank opposition leader Netanyahu for doing a great deal with these agreements. The State of Israel owes him a lot."
He called on other countries to join the accords, especially the Palestinian Authority. "I take this opportunity to call on the Palestinians, as well as the citizens of every Arab nation, to turn to peace. The people of Israel have not returned to their ancient homeland to fight, but to build a life of prosperity and good neighborliness here."
"Peace is not a compromise, it is the most decisive decision we can make. Peace is not a weakness, it embodies within it all the power of the human spirit. War is submission to all that is evil in us, peace is the victory of all that is good in us," Lapid said.
"From here, from the free capital of Israel, Jerusalem, I say to all our enemies. If you ban wage war on us, you will lose. We are stronger than you think, more determined than you think, willing to sacrifice more than you believe. If instead you decide to join the Abraham Accords, to bring prosperity, jobs, a culture of progress and success to your peoples - our hand is extended to you. Let's do it together," added Lapid.
Former Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu noted that "as long as they said it was impossible to make peace with the Arab world without making peace with the Palestinians, we could not make peace."
"We broke the Palestinian veto and brought in four historic peace agreements, the Avraham agreements," Netanyahu said.