Yair Lapid – a playwright, poet, translator, actor, columnist, novelist,
television host and newscaster – announced Sunday he was resigning as the anchor
of Channel 2’s Friday evening news to set out on a “new
path.”
Conventional wisdom, fed to some extent by statements made by
Lapid, is that this new path will involve forming a new political party that
will run in the next general election.
According to reports in the
Israeli media earlier this week, Lapid has held a number of meetings with
political consultants, former politicians and government employees, including
former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former chief of staff of the Prime
Minister’s Bureau under Ariel Sharon, Uri Shani.
Lapid’s entry into the
arena is likely to change the political landscape
significantly.
Primarily and perhaps most immediately he poses a threat
to Kadima, which polls indicate is projected to suffer most as a result. But the
appearance of a new party in his image could potentially undercut the power of
the Likud and other parties as well, reshaping political discourse and shifting
the balance of power.
Unlike any other player on the political scene,
Lapid has an opportunity to tap into the disgruntlement of middle class
Israelis. The same Israelis who, while they might support the Likud, Israel
Beiteinu, Labor, Kadima and other parties on cardinal issues came out in droves
last summer to protest the reigning division of economic, social and political
power and government priorities in Israel. The “social injustice” was created by
those very same established parties over the past two decades, during which all
held varying degree of power. Lapid, who is not associated with any of them, can
expect to garner a great deal of popular support as a consequence.
Lapid
has spent years framing himself as a middle-of-the-road Israeli who believes in
the good of his country and is generally proud of it. In his columns, first in
Ma’ariv then in Yediot Aharonot, as well as in his capacity as a prime time
talk-show host and news anchor, Lapid has come across as a thoughtful, tolerant
and broad-minded individual. While positioning himself as an unabashedly Zionist
secular Israeli Jew, he has been careful to steer clear of the anti-haredi
(ultra-Orthodox) and otherwise divisive rhetoric that was the hallmark of his
late father, former justice minister and veteran journalist Yosef
Lapid.
Equally importantly, he has refrained from taking a stand on the
fate of the territories. Rather, Lapid’s approach has been more pragmatic than
ideological. He has acknowledged that the failure of peace efforts is not solely
Israel’s fault, but at the same time has argued that the occupation, and the
corruption and division it has sown in Israeli society, are ultimately
politically unsustainable.
This approach is likely to resonate with the
many Israelis who are not ideologically motivated to keep Judea and Samaria
under Israeli control, but who nevertheless have doubts about our “peace
partners’” intentions. In short, his is a pragmatic approach shared by many who
voted for coalition parties.
OVER THE years, Lapid has addressed, in
columns and public appearances, the evolution of Israeli society into its
current “tribal” state, the dangers such tribalism poses and the ways in which
society must change if it wishes to survive. He has advocated the creation of a
new social compact in which there is mutual respect for the needs, preferences
and desires of the various components of Israeli society – secular, haredi,
traditional and national-religious Jews as well as Arabs and Druse.
In a
recent lecture he gave at the haredi college in Kiryat Ono, for example, Lapid
said that the haredim could no longer leave responsibility for “state” affairs
to “the Israelis,” but rather had to assume their responsibility as
equals.
That, too, is a message that resonates powerfully not only with
last summer’s protestors, but also many members of the formerly marginalized
“tribes” who wish to play an active role in shaping Israeli society as a
whole.
Unlike some of the retired generals who entered the political
arena before him with great fanfare and enormous public support that quickly
faded, such as Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, Avigdor Kahalani and Yitzhak Mordechai,
Lapid is a charismatic figure and a gifted speaker. For years, he has weighed in
on a broad spectrum of issues that concern all Israeli citizens.
Lapid,
as such, is not merely a fresh and “clean” public figure whose sole promise is
to introduce a “new and different kind of politics.”
Yair Lapid’s
appearance on the political scene is a welcome development that has the
potential to produce real change.
The writer is a veteran Israeli writer
and translator.