Yesh Atid chairman MK Yair Lapid in an interview Monday morning strongly criticized Israel’s political behavior and projected that the government will collapse by the end of the year.

“Israel’s international situation is the worst since the establishment of the state,” Lapid said to Yediot Aharonot, “Since nothing is being taken care of, the political arena is being abandoned.”

Lapid said that the Israeli government should not have flat out rejected the French initiative, but should have said they would review it: “French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is going to retire in the coming weeks. (Israel) should have said, ‘We will examine the offer’, instead of being recalcitrant, wait for two months, and it would have gone away by itself.”

The former Finance Minister believes there is a chance for a diplomatic solution to the conflict: “Someone has to work at it, because this government does not. It is so afraid. What we need to do is go to a regional conference in Riyadh or Cairo and start perusing two states “.

Lapid said that if he were Prime Minister, he would make balanced moves regarding the tunnel issue, saying that “The first step is negotiations through America to establish a port in Gaza because then Hamas will not attack for seven or eight years because they also want the port.” On the other hand, Lapid stressed that if tunnels are discovered, he would attack them.

“Our working assumption is that by the end of this year this government will fall. This are a lot of cracks in the coalition of 61 Knesset members, who also cannot do much,” said Lapid.