Yair Lapid is no longer bound by the ideological constraints of an eight-party, radically diverse coalition. That partnership fell apart, the Knesset dissolved on Thursday and elections were scheduled for November 1.
Yet in his first address to the nation as interim prime minister on Saturday night, Lapid delivered a speech that few in this unusual right-left-centre-Arab coalition would find problematic. And that was exactly his point.
In what marked the first salvo of his four-month campaign to convince Israelis to elect him to the post he succeeded Naftali Bennett, Lapid presented himself as an Israeli prime minister with shared goals and values, an Israel that is stronger, -secure and happier when it can healthily manage its inevitable internal divisions, an Israel whose public is far more united than its politicians have been.
He used the speech to lay out some basic personal credentials to an electorate, parts of which he admitted “do not and will not support” his caretaker government.
He reminded the watching audience that he was the son of a Holocaust survivor and thus keenly aware – given the horrors and betrayals of World War II – of the imperative that a reborn Jewish nation should always be able to defend itself.
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A secular leader, he connects to the faith as well as the Jewish nation with biblical quotations and excerpts from history.
He confirmed his bona fides by referring to the two photographs in his Knesset office of Israel’s greatest prime ministers from opposite sides of the political spectrum: David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin.
He has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to Israeli democracy and its Jewish character, including in an almost utopian statement: “We all have the same goal: a Jewish, democratic, liberal, great, strong, advanced and prosperous Israel.”
What exactly did he mean by “big”? To include territory to which Israel currently has no sovereign claim? There was no time for clarification. After all, this was his first premiership trick.
Lapid spoke in his familiar calm and serious tone, but seemed most energized toward the end of the brief address (less than 10 minutes), when he spoke of the extremism that “flows like lava” from Israel’s politics on its streets.
Almost the entire speech was a case of differentiating Lapid from his rival in the Nov. 1 election, Benjamin Netanyahu. He began by thanking Bennett for Thursday’s orderly transfer of power — a stark contrast to Netanyahu’s failure to honor his 2020 prime ministerial rotation agreement with Benny Gantz and Netanyahu’s less-than-welcoming 30-minute transition meeting with Bennett last June. But the passages about violence and viciousness in national politics were his angriest and most compelling, and were directed unmistakably at the Likud leader.
“The big Israeli question is really why, at a time when we have broad national agreement on all important topics, are the levels of hatred and anxiety in Israeli society so high?” Why is polarization more threatening than ever?” asked Lapid.
Israel’s politics are becoming more extreme and divisive, and they are “dragging Israeli society down with them,” he replied. “We have to stop this. That is our challenge.”
Lapid chose not to mention Netanyahu, either in this section or anywhere else in the speech — because he is clearly the antagonist who must be defeated, but who must not be named.
In Lapid’s portrayal of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, the opposition leader who shattered his painstakingly constructed coalition is not just the interim prime minister’s personal political nemesis, but the national enemy—the fierce, divisive obstacle to Israel, both secure and peaceful – searching, thriving economically but leaving no one behind, ideologically diverse yet mature in dealing with its internal arguments.
Lapid launched his campaign on Saturday with a civil but withering attack on the longest-serving prime minister Israel has ever had. Netanyahu can be counted on to strike back, and with less politeness.
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