‘The Centre Must Hold’: Lapid adviser Yair Zivan makes the case for political moderation

In November 2022, then-opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu and his bloc of ultra-nationalist and religious parties soundly defeated Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his allies, ushering in the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.

Reflecting on his time in power in an essay in a new book, “The Centre Must Hold,” edited by his longtime foreign policy adviser Yair Zivan, Lapid insisted that despite the fact that the members of his coalition were drawn from groups from the secularist left to the pro-settlement right, “from the moment the government was formed, everyone belonged to the political center.”

“The center is not a restricted version of the right or left, but an optimistic political system based on the idea that people who disagree can work together in pursuit of a common goal,” Lapid wrote.

Lapid’s argument, like that of the many other political leaders and thinkers who contributed to the anthology, is that centrism is a distinct ideology that seeks to “create a constant balance between the contradictions of modern life,” drawing good ideas from both right and left but not attempting to find an artificial center merely for the sake of balance.

It is an idea that is close to editor Zivan’s heart. Sitting for an interview in an upscale cafe in an affluent neighborhood of north Tel Aviv, the 39-year-old British-Israeli described to The Times of Israel why he believes a more assertive centrism is the only appropriate response to the challenges facing Israel and the world in a time of growing political polarization.

The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

The Times of Israel: One of the things that seemed to be hammered home by pretty much every essay in your book is the idea that centrism is not just a midpoint between the left and the right, but its own thing.

Yair Zivan: I’d go further. It’s not that centrism isn’t just a midpoint. The middle is merely a point on the political spectrum that politicians look to find because it’s politically convenient. That’s a short-term thing, because if you’re searching for the middle, then you’re getting dragged around by the extremes.

Centrism, by contrast, says we have a series of fundamental values and principles that guide us and that lead us.

So it is not purely pragmatic? There is an underlying ideology?

An underlying ideological framework. There’s a few clear examples that I can pick out quickly from the book. One is the unfailing, unflinching commitment to liberal democracy, leading the fight for liberal democracy and for its institutions.

And that means leading the fight for a free press, even if you don’t always agree with everything that’s written about you.

It means leading the fight for an independent judiciary, even if you don’t like every decision by the court.

And it means taking the institutions and the foundations of liberal democracy and being the voice that protects them, because the extremes and the fringes of politics tend to support the institutions of state as long as they support them and drift away from them when it’s uncomfortable.

But centrism is also pragmatic?

Being pragmatic, being willing to compromise, is a positive trait in a liberal democracy that will make the system function.

I always give this example: What if I can pass a policy exactly as I want with 51 percent support or I can water down it to 80% of what I want with 75% support? I’ll choose that second option. Not because I have to but because I would rather build a broader consensus.

Why? Because it creates more sustainable policy, because it creates a healthier political environment and because I might learn something from people who think differently from me. And because doing things gradually leads to things that are more sustainable and the public finds easier to accept and to move with.

It’s also about liberal patriotism, which I think is a definitively centrist idea: We are proud patriots.

So patriotism without jingoism?

Right. Without the jingoism, without the nationalism, without the need to hate others.

Centrism and the hard right are the two dominant political forces in Israel today. And not only in Israel, you see it in other places as well. The real division in Israel today is between two very different visions for the country, and the dividing line doesn’t run necessarily through coalition and opposition.

It doesn’t really matter whether it comes from Marx or from Hayek. If the idea works, then the idea works.

There are members of this coalition today in Israel who are more aligned with us than aligned with Ben Gvir and Smotrich. I think they’ll be the thing that brings down this government.

You are very critical of this government.

The government disappeared on October 7. The government was gone. And that is a result of a populist extremist government that can’t deal with the normal complexity of running a country, let alone in a moment of crisis.

So what does centrism need to do to present a viable alternative to populism?

Centrists have to be able to connect to the grievances and the fears that people have about the world.

The fact that someone in Europe votes for a far-right party doesn’t make them a racist. People are concerned about migration, and about technology taking their jobs, and rather than dismissing that out of hand we need to genuinely understand those fears that people feel and then say to them, ‘Listen, the [populists are] offering you simplistic slogans.’

We need to infuse our messages with the same passion that the radicals and the populists have around messages of fear.

How did this translate into policy during Lapid’s time in power?

What does it look like when it comes to implementing a policy? First of all, it says there is wisdom in other people’s ideas. It doesn’t really matter whether it comes from Marx or from Hayek. If the idea works, then the idea works.

There are members of this coalition today in Israel who are more aligned with us than aligned with Ben Gvir and Smotrich. I think they’ll be the thing that brings down this government.

Part of that is about understanding the context is different. Everybody understands that during Covid, we needed more government spending in order to help businesses survive. That doesn’t mean we’re in favor of government handouts for business and we’re against a free market. But if you’re constantly looking for the best outcomes and that’s the thing that you’re focused on, then you build the policy around that.

In the government that we were in, we had people all the way from the left to the right, and there were really good people in every party — really good people who set out to work.

This isn’t an ideological thing, that only centrists do good things. I think centrists are better at governing than the extremes. But we need to do a better job of highlighting people who do serious, good work.

And in terms of international relations and our dealings with the Palestinians, for example?

Each one of those is maybe different. But in all of them, you start with the outcome. You start with the endpoint.

The endpoint for me with the Palestinians is Israel’s national security needs. As an Israeli patriot, that’s where I start my conversation. What do I need to do that best benefits Israel’s national security? For the record, we support a two-state solution.

I think centrists are better at governing than the extremes.

I think we’re further away from it after October 7. There are more things that need to happen in order to make it a reality, for sure. But go to the broader point: the conversation starts with what is best for Israel’s national security, not that we have to reach a two-state solution because that’s what the international community says.

So what do we need to do now?

The greatest threat to Israel today, I think most people would agree, is a nuclear Iran and Iranian hegemony in the Middle East and the threat that comes from Iran surrounding Israel.

If that’s the case, our number one priority is to counter that. How do we counter that? Through a broad regional alliance that allows us to counter Iran, that runs through (a) some compromise on the Palestinian issue, and (b) strong, sustainable, bipartisan relations with the United States.

One of the things about centrism is it allows you to break out some of the old molds.

It’s shocking to me to see the state of our relations, both with Europe and with the US at the moment, at a time when it’s critical for our national security that those relations are better.

One of the criticisms of Lapid’s unity government was that it focused on day-to-day governing rather than tackling any of the big issues facing Israel.

Yeah, I think that’s a really fair criticism of our government. And I think that stemmed not from the fact that it was diverse as much as the fact the majority was so small [while] it was so diverse.

We could [have done more] with maybe fewer than eight parties, slightly narrower, and with a more solid majority.

Where do you think you succeeded?

One of the things about centrism is it allows you to break out some of the old molds.

And when I think back to our time in the Foreign Ministry [Lapid initially served as foreign minister to prime minister Naftali Bennett in their partnership], one of the biggest things we achieved is that we broke through diplomatic norms and did things that don’t happen in normal diplomatic settings by having a more innovative approach. The Negev Forum was born out of a series of phone calls and WhatsApp conversations between foreign ministers.

Is it possible to build another coalition like that?

The question about whether centrism is a sustainable long-term political approach is how you recover from your defeats, rebuild, get back into government and then deliver. And I think that’s what we’re doing.

I actually think if you look at centrism in Israel, we’re getting back to where we were in terms of the strength of the centrist camp. And if I had to guess, based on opinion polls, if there were an election today the next government would be a centrist one. Center-left, center-right, but it’ll be a centrist government in its ethos again.