In 2012, TV host Yair Lapid decided he was tired of sitting in a studio on Friday nights, grabbed a black t-shirt, and launched himself an elitist boutique party with a permanent slogan generator: persecuting the ultra-Orthodox, and ‘exposing’ Israelis in Judea and Samaria. All of it, of course, a cover for the real issue—anyone but Bibi. There was no path, no ideology. Just a polished poster, the kind that photographs well, with lots of friends in the industry selling illusions to the public.
1+Just a few months ago, Lapid stood at a festive campaign conference alongside Naftali Bennett, eyes gleaming as he tried to sell the public his latest pitch. “This thing you’re feeling now, that you haven’t felt in a long time, is called hope,” Lapid said. Yair, you knew no one was buying your product, so you sold it to Bennett. Not hope but failure. You knew exactly that your ship was splitting in two, and you rushed to unite with Bennett just so you wouldn’t sink alone. And look what’s left of the fortress today.
Several Knesset members have already abandoned ship. Lapid explains to them that they have no chance of making it into the next Knesset, and slowly everyone is dispersing. Lapid’s people are fleeing. The party that was worth 24 seats four years ago is trying with all its might to save a few isolated Knesset members for the next election. And in the studios, as usual, they’re trying to soften the blow and paint the party’s collapse as a classic, polite event. As if it’s just a minor scratch.
1+“The way people resigned and did it with such friendship and embrace,” said journalist Barak Seri. But there’s quite an event here: the largest opposition party is falling apart. Because in the end, hatred of Netanyahu is not an ideology. It can’t hold a party together, it can’t generate a security or political agenda. Just another atmosphere party. When all that connects you is who you’re against, the moment that glue weakens, everything falls apart.
You can’t forget Lapid’s obnoxious “we are the majority” chant, when he celebrated that rickety bluff in the past. Yeah, sure. A real historic victory. So to the friends at Yesh Atid: the event is over, the lights are out. I remember some guy, Amnon (Levi, journalist), who once talked about Prime Minister Netanyahu as a footnote. So maybe Lapid is actually more suited to that definition—Lapid, who will exit the political stage without leaving any mark and will be nothing more than a historical footnote.