The 2013 elections have left us in the hands of Binyamin Netanyahu, a veteran
politician, and Yair Lapid, a political novice who swept up 19 Knesset seats. To
compare them, analysts have examined their records, media skills and even the
way they conduct their personal lives. But there is another factor crucial to
understanding the differences between the two media-savvy politicians: their
fathers’ influence.
In 1979, journalist Joseph “Tommy” Lapid was
appointed CEO of the Israel Broadcasting Authority by the government of Menachem
Begin (which came to power in 1977), replacing Yitzhak Livni.
Even before
he began trying to replace some of the entrenched leftists among the television
and radio management with people on the Center and Right, Lapid had already
suffered blunt verbal criticism and slander from his subordinates, having been
marked as “inappropriate” for the position.
As related by his son, Yair
Lapid in his book Memories after my death (an “autobiography” published after
his father’s death): “In Tzavta [a Tel Aviv culture club identified with the
left wing], there was a conference of enraged artists organized against me.
Fiery speeches were given, petitions were signed, and Yossi Banai took the stage
and dedicated Norman Thomas’ ‘The Naughty Little Flea’ to me, to the cheers of
the crowd.... It was one of those moments in which the arrogant stupidity of the
Israeli Left was on full display. Everyone explained, into every available
microphone, that they were protesting against me as a ‘political appointee,’ but
none of these murky knights of democracy had said a word when Yitzhak Livni was
appointed to the exact same job by the old Labor Party establishment; he was
clearly a leftist.... When it was someone in their circle, their abhorrence for
political appointments vanished.”
Although generally Lapid allowed
freedom of expression at IBA, after he dismissed the faithful leftist television
director Arnon Zuckerman and enforced a ban on interviews with PLO members, he
was tagged as a “dark, conservative nationalist” and nicknamed “Tommy
La-Pen.”
Lapid’s treatment by the Left was felt more deeply because of
what his friend Ephraim Kishon was subjected to. Kishon was a popular columnist
at Ma’ariv, as well as an author and playwright. His satire columns were much
loved by the mainstream, but he was boycotted by the Israeli media elite for
years.
Gradually Lapid got tired of the resentment directed against him
in culture and art circles, his criticisms against them diminished, and he
apparently decided that “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
It was a
conscious, calculated move. Years later he was quoted in Nissim Mish’al’s book
Those Were the Years – Israel is 50 Years Old (1998) as saying: “Bibi’s
[Binyamin Netanyahu] original sin was daring to be elected in defiance of the
‘holy trinity’: the media, academia and the white establishment.
The
liberal Left advocates of free democratic elections cannot accept the fact that
the majority voted ‘incorrectly.’ Hence the consistent, arrogant attempts to
de-legitimize Bibi as prime minister.”
Lapid then went and became
“voluntarily” leftist.
Lapid’s political embrace of the Left was revealed
for the first time during Operation Peace for Galilee, when he criticized
Begin’s government. Then, in the 1999 elections he headed a left-wing party he
founded, Shinui, and won six seats, and in 2003 led it to 15 seats (one of those
on the Shinui list was Etti Livni, Yitzhak Livni’s wife).
In 2004, in his
capacity as deputy prime minister and minister of justice in Ariel Sharon’s
second government, Lapid was outspoken and critical. He opposed demolition of
Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip, and said that the sight of an old Gazan
woman searching through the ruins of her house, which had been destroyed by the
IDF, aroused his memories of his own grandmother, Hermine, who perished in the
Holocaust.
During his tenure as justice minister, Lapid gave full backing
to activist Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, and was also among the
supporters of the appointment of state attorney Edna Arbel to the court – after
having described her in 1997 as the “head of legal terrorism division,” a
reference to her left-wing activities.
In fact, his establishment of
Shinui while still a media professional foreshadowed the creation of Yesh Atid
by his son, Yair Lapid. Shinui’s platform, which argued for enlisting haredim
(ultra-Orthodox) and strengthening the free market, bears a striking resemblance
to that of Yesh Atid – except for the latter’s new slogan: “Equalize the
Burden.”
Like Shinui, Yesh Atid is designed to link up with the political
Left and yet attract right-wing voters through its anti-haredi and economic
agenda.
IF THE elder Lapid could be said to have retreated in the face of
left-wing fire, the exact opposite could be said of Professor Benzion Netanyahu,
Binyamin Netanyahu’s father, namely that he kept fighting until his
death.
In the late 1950s and early ‘60s, Prof. Netanyahu had to leave for
the US to pursue his career as a historical researcher, because he had been
ostracized by Israel’s academic community due to his right-wing views. Returning
to Israel after his son Yoni was killed during the Entebbe raid in 1976, he
continued to pursue his intellectual work despite exclusion from polite Israeli
society.
Like his father, Binyamin Netanyahu has been savaged in the
media and de-legitimized, and yet has remained true to his political origins. It
is not just a question of comparing Netanyahu’s service as a fighter in an elite
IDF unit to Lapid’s service as an army reporter for Bamahane, but also a
question of comparing their political willingness to confront the establishment.
Judging from the perspective of their fathers’ influence and political
trajectory, Lapid will likely cave in to left-wing pressure in order to gain
sympathy.
The writer is the editor of The Jerusalem Post IVRIT and has a
PhD in Information Science.
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