Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid, best known for his views about the secular-religious divide in Israeli society, delivered an impassioned plea Thursday, Oct. 10, for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, calling it “a key” to improving the lives of ordinary Israelis and the stature of Israel in the world.

Speaking in Washington where he was attending the annual International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings, Lapid departed from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in putting the Palestinian issue — not Iran — at the top of Israel’s security priorities. Lapid, a former TV anchor whose new Yesh Atid party rocketed to 19 Knesset seats in elections last year by appealing to Israel’s secular middle class, said Israelis and Palestinians should try to reach agreement on an “endgame” and then decide on a time to implement it.

“The Palestinians and the Israelis need to know how the story is going to end,” Lapid told the audience at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Implementation, he said would take time, perhaps as long as a decade. “I need time because I do not believe the Palestinians. … I need time to get over it,” he said.

The Palestinians, he acknowledged, are equally distrustful of Israelis after two decades in which neither have kept their promises to each other: Israelis have increased settlements and Palestinians have attacked Israel, particularly from Gaza. Despite this difficult record, Lapid said now was the time to “jump-start” talks again because the Palestinians have had 20 years since the Oslo Accords to manage territory and “they’ve been through a lot.” A peace agreement would also boost the Israeli economy and deflect criticism from those who depict Israel as Goliath and the Palestinians as David, he said.