It seems there’s no politician I’ve been more wrong about than Yair Lapid. When he entered politics, I assumed it would be a short and unsuccessful adventure. I figured that, given his tendency to seek consensus and chase public affection, he would struggle to cope with the confrontational nature of politics and the inevitable decline in quality of life.
Lapid proved all of that wrong. He survived an underwhelming full term as finance minister and reinvented himself. He withstood Avi Gabbay’s entrance into the political arena, which at first seemed like it would crush Yesh Atid in the polls. And during Benny Gantz’s meteoric rise, Lapid appeared to be politically finished. “I’ll wait patiently for the moment they truly need me — and then I’ll know how to get the most out of it,” he said at the time.
Chili Tropper, then and now a close associate of Gantz, described in a new book the pivotal meeting of the Blue and White party: the choice between merging with Lapid or Orly Levy-Abekasis. The sides were nearly evenly split. Tropper himself supported bringing in Levy-Abekasis (and still believes he was right), but Gantz took a chance on Lapid — and Yesh Atid was saved.
And after all this praise, Lapid’s current political challenge is particularly difficult. This time, it’s not even clear why he’s fallen out of favor with voters. After all, he formed the “change government” and served as prime minister for a reasonably solid six months — yet voters are fleeing. In the latest Channel 13 poll, in a scenario where Naftali Bennett enters the race (and he is entering), Lapid receives just five seats — a loss of about 20 seats since the last election. And all this despite not being in power, having no role in the October 7 massacre or its aftermath, not joining the government, and at most leading an ineffective opposition.
Is that what’s behind the decline? Or is it the public's growing desire for a strong leader to “hit the Arabs,” in the mold of Avigdor Lieberman? Or perhaps it's the rise of a left-wing alternative?
In recent months, Lapid has sounded more and more like Yair Golan: sharply criticizing the State Comptroller, calling him a political puppet and saying he has no trust in him or his investigations. Lapid attacked Channel 14’s owner while confusing him with his father and clashed with Gideon Sa’ar in a way no other former colleague of Sa’ar has.
One might credit Lapid with not making a purely cynical turn — not simply trying to woo voters who defected to Golan. There’s surely genuine outrage over this government and its actions. But this is not the same Lapid who, at the start of the judicial overhaul — according to Brig. Gen. (res.) Assaf Agmon’s recent book — flatly refused any cooperation with the protest movement and unsuccessfully tried to organize his own demonstration.
Lapid’s latest book is filled with tales of his phenomenal success in the face of a world — including his closest advisors — that gave him no chance. The stories are exaggerated. Winning the Friday night TV ratings battle with “Ulpan Shishi” wasn’t all that hard, and forming the change government was a realistic scenario — Lapid wasn’t the only one who believed in it. But the message is clear: you talk, I act.
At this point, it’s hard to see how Lapid breaks through the dead end. He’s sworn never to be anyone’s number two again, so even putting Gadi Eisenkot at the head of his party, or joining forces with Lieberman, is off the table. A merger with Golan is certainly out of the question. Running to the end could result in a small, irrelevant party that would have to compromise heavily on its principles to sit with the ultra-Orthodox in government. The possibility of Lapid simply stepping away from politics seems unlikely. Thirteen years after entering the political arena — having served as finance minister, foreign minister, and prime minister — it seems Lapid will once again need a bit of magic to prevent this chapter from marking the end of his political journey.