A Government of ‘Concerned’ Israelis

Israel’s Yesh Atid Party leader, Yair Lapid continues to call for a government of consensus, based on pluralism and mutual respect.

 

Responding to a ‘scathing’ and ‘insulting’ media debate concerning the political bias of any new government, Lapid has retorted in a message to party supporters:

“The answer is that this will be the government of concerned Israelis. Those who think … it is much more important to take care of livelihoods and peace at home in Israeli society. Suspicion will lead us nowhere. We must make a ‘leap of faith’, he urged and so build a government that is based on the fact that we believe that other people, who think differently, also want it to be good here”.

Mr Lapid, who has offered Yamina Party chief Naftali Bennett first crack at a rotating premiership in any putative joint government, noted that while incumbent premier Benjamin Netanyahu had been given the mandate to form the next government, “that does not mean we stop working.

”The goal was and remains … to form a national consensus government, which will address the deep crisis we are in”.

The government Lapid proposes would include three “distinct right-wing parties (Yamina, New Hope and Yisrael Beiteinu), two centre-right parties (Yesh Atid and Blue and White) and two left-wing Zionist parties (Labour and Meretz).

“This means that no-one will get everything they want, but there will be a balance that will force us to focus on practical goals: the budget, health, education - the urgent need to lower the flames in Israeli society. Along the way, we must also change our flawed system of government.

“No-one will abandon his ideology, but right now we have more urgent problems. The children have not been in school this year; hospitals are collapsing. We need to prepare for the day when hundreds of thousands of Israelis will stop receiving unemployment benefit. These problems are not of right and left, but of real people who have real lives. They will not be resolved by headlines but by ministers who come to work”.

 

© Natalie Wood (07 April 2021)