Three days after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and leader of the Yesh Atid party and now former finance minister Yair Lapid failed to resolve their differences and so thrust Israel into an electoral season less than two years after the last election, the Left’s narrative is already clear. Netanyahu has forced unnecessary, costly elections on the country.
He did so because his reactionary nature, overweening ego and thin skin made it impossible for him to handle a true reformer like Lapid, who was trying to push the country forward.
The actual situation is quite different. These elections are necessary. The up to NIS 1.2 billion that taxpayers will have to pay to finance the vote scheduled for March 17 is money well spent. And if the current polls are even close to what the election results will be three months from now, then the public understands that they are necessary and intends to elect a government that will serve it better than the one that just dissolved.
To be sure, Netanyahu is the one who decided to call elections. But the person responsible for making it impossible for the existing government to function is Lapid. Over the past few months Lapid has had the political equivalent of a nervous breakdown.
In 2013, Lapid ran as a centrist. The television celebrity’s new party, Yesh Atid, presented itself as the voice of the hard-working middle class whose members love this country and are tired of electing governments that trample their economic interests and take them for granted in favor of special interests, especially the haredim.
In other words, Lapid ran as his father’s son.
The late Yosef “Tommy” Lapid’s Shinui party also claimed to be the voice of the middle class and the ideological Center, fighting the special interests, especially the haredim.
But as economic commentator Rotem Sella explained Thursday on the NRG website, aside from boycotting the haredim, Lapid Jr. did not follow in his father’s footsteps after taking office.