From the Liveblog of
Monday, February 26, 2024
Lapid: Tomorrow’s municipal vote proves Israel can hold an election during wartime
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Tomorrow’s nationwide municipal elections prove that it is possible to go to the polls during wartime, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declares, calling for a new government to replace that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While members of Netanyahu’s government have spoken out against calls to hold national elections during wartime, arguing that they would have a negative effect on the country during a time of crisis, Lapid counters that “we need elections as soon as possible.”
“It is technically possible, it is possible in terms of the army, it is even possible to do it without tearing the people apart. In the last few weeks, people held parlor meetings, put up posters, activated campaign staffs, and no disaster happened. Israeli democracy worked,” he says.
Above all, the fact that Netanyahu “is still in our lives, after October 7, after the greatest disaster to befall the Jewish people happened on his watch, is completely crazy. It can’t go on,” he says.
Lapid also joins Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman in criticizing Minister Benny Gantz’s expected announcement of an outline for the enlistment of members of the ultra-Orthodox community, which he says will follow the former IDF chief of staff’s 2021 proposal to gradually enlist Haredim over a period of six to eight years.
“It’s not new. It’s an outline that hasn’t conscripted even one Haredi person… I call on the National Unity party to join in supporting our legislation,” Lapid says, referring to a recent Yesh Atid bill withdrawing government benefits from citizens who evade military or civil service.
