Like almost every statement in his artificial political life, his latest slogan was stolen by Yair Lapid from the left in America.
"We have restored normalcy," the foreign minister announced at a photo event marking the 100th anniversary of the formation of the government, a major part of which he spent on vacations in Israel and abroad, filming in cafes and taking care not to touch on difficult issues such as the Corona epidemic.
This hollow password did not find its way to the teleprompter screens by chance. "Back to normalcy" was the main promise in Joe Biden's election campaign, a promise that is not exactly fulfilled. In fact, Biden is currently in the most severe public and political slump of his short tenure, plummeting in public opinion polls and appearing helpless in the face of economic and health crisis, waves of illegal immigration and many other headaches in the House of Representatives and his left-wing party. The shameful American escape from Afghanistan was just the last pin in the "normalcy" balloon.
Like the farce called the Biden administration, the "normal" Israeli government has since its inception displayed an unimaginable chain of omissions in all areas while pulling far to the left. The corona plague is raging almost uninterruptedly, security tensions on various fronts may ignite at any moment, while Iran is galloping to the bomb, and in the political sphere the foreign minister and his comrades are making every possible mistake in galloping back to the futile "political process".
All this did not prevent the detached torch from declaring the astonishing assertion that "the whole world wants to learn the new model," a model in which any disagreement will be resolved by "working on it together, quietly, reaching agreements between right and left."
New? Not exactly, since this, too, is an almost exact replica of Biden's remarks in the presidential election, so he repeatedly promised that he could work collaboratively with the Republican Party after Trump. And just as Biden has failed to do so, even in the Bennett government we see that any disagreement always ends in the actual victory of the left that controls it. And there is certainly nothing "normal" about measures such as the overthrow of the opposition in the Knesset, the formation of an inflated government and the division of jobs, the containment of the corona, the promotion of anti-democratic personnel laws or the removal of gatekeepers.
And how is the big change supposed to take place?
According to Lapid, when he celebrated the transfer of the cuts budget on first reading and explained the tax increases contrary to promises, "we took steps related to changes in public behavior."
Once again - a perfect imitation of Biden who promised to "re-engineer the foundations of America" through economic cuts.
In light of all this, Lapid's claim that "we kept our word" seems even more ridiculous when we really examine what he promised and what it has - a round zero, as Guy Zohar showed exactly.
Quite distorted, Lapid's pompous speech last night accurately symbolized the first hundred days of government.
While everything is burning around, the ministers fly, take pictures and give speeches, enjoy full media coverage and are sure that magic words like "normal" will help to dispel the sad reality.
The whole government, it seems, is hovering in a parallel and cheerful public relations universe. "This is just the beginning," Lapid promised last night, and the most normal thing to do right now is to be very apprehensive about the sequel.
