In the mid-2000s, Yaïr Lapid hosted his father on his weekly talk show, the most popular program on Israeli television at the time. Tommy Lapid was then Minister of Justice and deputy of a secular party, Chinouï (“Change”). Like American journalists, the young man approaches his father’s face and asks him: “What is an Israeli?” “An Israeli, that’s you,” replies the minister, his eyes filled with admiration.
For this Holocaust survivor, born in Serbia before the Second World War, his son embodies the archetype of sabra, the conquering and confident native Israeli, stripped of the complexes and traumas of the Jewish exile. A normal man, in short. Ten years later, this aspiration for normalcy would become the mantra of politician Yaïr Lapid, appointed Prime Minister of Israel on June 30.
Charismatic and rock lover, the young Lapid becomes aware from adolescence of his aura with the “brenja“, the Israeli intellectual and cultural elite. He does not have to force the doors too much: his father was also a journalist in sight before entering politics and his mother, Shulamit, a recognized writer. Boosted, he performs his military service at the Tsahal newspaper, far from the mythical Sayeret Matkal, the elite Tsahal unit where the Netanyahus, Baraks and Bennetts forged their legend. of Tel-Aviv. After a remarkable appearance in the popular daily Maarivhe made a name for himself on television with his incisive interviews and his Clooney-like physique.
At a young age, he founded his own political party.
But at 35, Yaïr Lapid is bored. He then decided to get involved in politics. To establish a credible strategy, he turned to an intimate of the family: Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister from 2006 to 2009. The latter advised him to join the Kadima party founded by Ariel Sharon and then led by Tsipi Livni, the main opponent of Benyamin Netanyahu. But Lapid can’t see himself playing second fiddle. Without any electoral experience, he founded his own party: Yesh Atid (“There is a future”).
By auscultating the qualitative opinion polls, Lapid realizes that the Israelis are losing confidence in their politicians and want new faces. That they worry less about the security situation and more about the problems of daily life, such as purchasing power or transport. And that they are indignant at the dispensation from military service granted to young Orthodox.
To refine a program intended to seduce the “normal” Israeli, Lapid surrounds himself with personalities from civil society and mayors of medium-sized towns such as Sderot, Herzlya or Bat Yam. Listening to his running mate, Lapid imposes only one rule on them: not to challenge him for the leadership of the party for at least ten years. In the 2013 elections, his party created a surprise. Yesh Atid wins 19 seats in the Knesset and becomes the second Israeli party behind the Likud. The star journalist has successfully transformed. “Immediately, I saw a mask of gravity fall on his face. He carried the hopes of millions of people on his shoulders”, testifies Ehud Olmert.
Yair Lapid with Naftali Bennett, then Prime Minister, during a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on June 19, 2022.
afp.com/Abir SULTAN
To force Netanyahu to give him a place of choice in the government coalition, Lapid will form a ticket with Naftali Bennett, the young leader of the settler party. A disconcerting ally for a man who advocates an end to colonization and the creation of a Palestinian state. But the two politicians get along well and give each other “ahi” (“my brother”) during their public appearances. Above all, Lapid proves to be a political end, cultivating an all-Macronian “at the same time”. “Lapid only speaks of a better future, summarizes Ronen Tsour, political strategy adviser. He sticks to you. He adapts to his electorate, instead of trying to take him towards his vision of the State.”
A winding road of first opponent to Netanyahu
Appointed Minister of Finance in 2013, Lapid is losing his luster. The autodidact with no experience has a poor command of the technicalities of the budget and the intricacies of the state machine. He ended up bending before the battering of a Netanyahu constantly instructing his trial for incompetence. In 2015, he left the government and let his electorate slip away, in the following elections, to the Labor Party. Lapid could then have joined the cohort of media-political comets. But he hangs on.
Always present in the Knesset, he pounded Netanyahu daily, weakened by the wear and tear of power and several corruption cases. Relentlessness pays off. In March 2021, it obtains 17 seats. Yesh Atid once again becomes the leading opposition party, but remains unable to muster a majority of deputies. So, Lapid does the trick of 2013 again: a deal with Bennett. But this time, it is a question of dethroning Netanyahou, in power for twelve years without interruption. Arrived well ahead of Bennett, Lapid does not hesitate to give way to “his brother”. Bennett will begin the rotation: he will be prime minister for two years and then give way to Lapid. Everyone knows the coalition won’t last that long, but Netanyahu is losing power, that’s the main thing.
The Lapid-Bennett government brings together all the country’s political sensitivities, from the Russian-speaking nationalists of Avigdor Lieberman, to the pacifists of Meretz via the Islamists of the Arab Raam party. For twelve months, Lapid worked to smooth things over, to oil the wheels of this improbable coalition. “Unlike Bennett, Lapid shows humanity with each deputy, slips a parliamentary attaché. He manages to create cohesion despite ideological differences.”
In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lapid is more comfortable than in Finance. Warm and consensual, it contrasts with the roughness of the previous team. Even if he does not give up anything on the merits and defends a hard line on the Iranian nuclear or the Islamist threat. On colonization in the West Bank, which started again with renewed vigor under Bennett, he does not flinch. “Lapid is a typical Israeli in the sense that he knows nothing of the Palestinians and their suffering,” quipped Gideon Lévy, the pet peeve of the settlers, in an editorial.
Interviewed in a documentary broadcast in 2018, most of Yair Lapid’s political partners doubted his ability to play the role of Prime Minister. “I can’t imagine him in a portrait gallery next to Ben Gurion, Rabin or Sharon,” confided one of them. However, it is the former star host who will welcome Joe Biden on the red carpet on the tarmac at Tel Aviv airport on July 13. He will remain Prime Minister until the November 1 elections, while fighting to prevent Netanyahu’s return to power.