Opposition leader and Chairman of Israel’s Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid speaks during a weekly party meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 24, 2021. (AFP)
JERUSALEM – Yair Lapid, who edged closer on Sunday to forming a coalition cabinet to oust long-term premier Benjamin Netanyahu, is Israel’s centrist opposition leader and a former television anchor.
When Lapid founded his Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party in 2012, some dismissed him as the latest in a series of media stars seeking to parlay his celebrity into political success.
But Yesh Atid finished second with 17 seats in March elections, Israel’s fourth inconclusive vote in less than two years, and earlier this month Lapid was tasked to form a government after Netanyahu failed to cobble together a coalition.
On Sunday, Lapid convinced nationalist hardliner Naftali Bennett to join him in building a coalition cabinet they hope will end Netanyahu’s 12 consecutive years in office.
Determined to form a government before a Wednesday night deadline, Lapid offered Bennett the opportunity to serve the first term in a rotating premiership. Lapid would then serve the second.
The renewed efforts towards drafting a viable anti-Netanyahu line-up came after an 11-day conflict between the Jewish state and the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers ended with an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire on May 21.
Lapid, a former news anchor once known largely for his chiselled good looks, is the Tel Aviv-born son of the fiercely secular former justice minister Yosef “Tommy” Lapid, another journalist who left the media to enter politics.
His mother, Shulamit, is a novelist, playwright and poet.
An amateur boxer and martial artist who has also published a dozen books, Lapid was a newspaper columnist before becoming a presenter on Channel 2 TV, a role that boosted his stardom, and he once featured on lists of Israel’s most desirable men.
‘Voice of experience’
The fiercely secularist and centrist Yesh Atid had claimed a surprising 19 seats in Israel’s 120-member parliament back in 2013 polls, establishing Atid as a credible force in politics.
The party joined the centrist Blue and White coalition formed in 2019 under the leadership of former military chief Benny Gantz.
Blue and White then battled Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud in three elections in less than a year.
When Gantz decided last spring to enter a Netanyahu-led coalition, citing the need for unity as the coronavirus pandemic was gathering pace, Lapid bolted.
He accused Gantz of breaching a fundamental promise Blue and White had made to its supporters: that it would fight to oust Netanyahu.
In an interview with AFP in September, Lapid said Gantz had naively believed that Netanyahu would work collaboratively within the coalition.
“I told (Gantz), ‘I’ve worked with Netanyahu. Why don’t you listen to the voice of experience… He is 71 years old. He is not going to change’,” Lapid said.
After exiting Blue and White, Lapid took his seat in parliament as the head of Yesh Atid and leader of the opposition.
He described the short-lived Netanyahu-Gantz unity government as “a ridiculous coalition”, in which cabinet ministers who disliked each other did not bother to communicate.
He also predicted the coalition would collapse in December, which it did, amid bitter acrimony between Netanyahu and Gantz.