From afar, Lapid bashes coalition talks as politics of self-interest

WASHINGTON – Israeli opposition politician and former government minister Yair Lapid lambasted topsy-turvy coalition talks in Israel as based upon self-interest rather than ideology, comparing them to American politicking Wednesday.

Speaking at the right-leaning Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Lapid tied the current agreement being negotiated between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman as part of a global trend that also encompassed the rollercoaster politics of the American presidential election cycle, which favor personal preservation of national well-being.

“Politics today are crazy all over the world and I think that people today are alarmed by the fact that politicians and politics became so preoccupied with themselves and their interests and what it is they want to achieve for themselves, their friends, and the people in the party instead of the country and the citizens and the good will of people,” the Yesh Atid party leader told attendees Wednesday morning, shortly after word emerged that Liberman and Netanyahu were engaged in talks.

The negotiations between the-ruling Likud party and Yisrael Beytenu emerged as a surprise as talks between Netanyahu and the Zionist Union’s Isaac Herzog broke down. After Lapid’s speech, reports emerged that Liberman had been offered and accepted the defense minister post.

“What you see right now in Israel is a shameful theater of politicians who are taking care of themselves instead of what they should have been taking care of which is the country,” complained Lapid, who spent his first term in office serving as finance minister in a Netanyahu-led coalition government. “This is why we’re not participating in this.”

Lapid said that “it is no secret that I was offered more than once to be part of this coalition but I promised to the people who voted for us that this is not the way we’re going to go about it and I take my word seriously and therefore we’re not part of it.”

“I wish Israeli politics would be more focused on the people of Israel,” Lapid lamented during a public conversation with Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Jonathan Schanzer.

The Yesh Atid party leader said that while in Washington, he had met with Democrats on Capitol Hill to discuss what he described as “the need to rehabilitate the relations between the Democratic Party and Israel.”

Relations between President Barack Obama’s party and the current Israeli government reached a low in 2015, when many House Democrats boycotted Netanyahu’s speech before both houses of Congress.

He said he had also met with prominent pro-Israel Republicans including Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain.

With the Republicans as well, Lapid recounted, US-Israel relations had been a central topic of discussion.

“Israel should express its gratitude more often. Its important. Having the one superpower in the world as your closest friend and ally – it’s a blessing,” Lapid said. “We need to be happy and respectful at the same time while saying our piece. Nobody’s going to control us from afar.”

Emphasizing that he didn’t want to criticize the prime minister from abroad, but “at times like this one where all interests are reexamined, you have to be more flexible” about statements and policies. “One of the keys in a global world is the ability to communicate with an American administration,” he added.

Lapid, who frequently uses overseas platforms to talk up his idea of a regional peace summit to jumpstart peace talks, downplayed the significance of the most recent French initiative to try and seek a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, joining Netanyahu in opposing the confab.

“Nobody really understands what the French are after right now,” Lapid stressed. “Probably they have good intentions.”

Lapid, who said that while in Washington this week, he had met with members of the Obama administration, said that he was “not sure that they know enough” to assess their position on any French initiative.

Secretary of State John Kerry, he argued, “didn’t say that he wanted to be involved. He said he might come. There’s a difference.”