Ehud Olmert (former Prime Minister of Israel, 2006–2009) — interview via The Philadelphia Inquirer, Jun 2023: warning that without a two-state solution Israel risks apartheid comparison — "We are reaching a point where we will be compared with the apartheid regime… of South Africa" — and that "this government doesn't want to make peace."

We are reaching a point where we will be compared with the apartheid regime that led the civilized world to boycott South Africa.

This government doesn't want to make peace. It won't make any effort to make peace.

[Source is English (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 2023, quoting his interview statements; Olmert is fluent in English); tier-2, confirmed verbatim against the fetched page.] Declared positions of Ehud Olmert — Prime Minister of Israel 2006–2009 (Kadima), the centrist Israeli leader who made the most far-reaching Israeli peace offer ever to the Palestinians (his 2008 proposal to Mahmoud Abbas: ~94% of the West Bank with land swaps, a shared Jerusalem, and an international trusteeship for the holy basin). Now an elder statesman of the ISRAELI PEACE CAMP and one of Netanyahu's fiercest domestic critics, he warns that without a two-state solution Israel risks becoming a pariah: "We are reaching a point where we will be compared with the apartheid regime that led the civilized world to boycott South Africa." He insists Israel — as the stronger party ("we have the power, the strength, not them") — bears the responsibility to act, and condemns the current government: "This government doesn't want to make peace. It won't make any effort to make peace." He has since (2024) co-authored a joint two-state peace plan with former Palestinian FM Nasser al-Kidwa, and condemned the conduct of the Gaza war in scathing terms. This is the ISRAELI CENTRIST / TWO-STATE / PEACE-CAMP pole — a former PM advocating territorial compromise, an end to the occupation, and partition into two states, in direct opposition to the Netanyahu-led right and the settler/annexationist current (cf. Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir). [Axes: Israel-Palestine (two-state solution; territorial compromise; end the occupation; the 2008 offer), government-stance (fierce critic of Netanyahu and the far-right coalition), Israel's-character (warning against apartheid/pariah status; preserving Israel as a democracy), security (a political settlement as the path to security rather than territory).]