Correspondent in Jerusalem
It is easy to spin the sports metaphor with Yair Lapid.
Promised to the post of interim prime minister as soon as the Knesset is scheduled to dissolve itself, the foreign minister, a position he will keep, is a former kickboxing fan.
In a cult video, he goes to the ring at the age of 26 to face an opponent nicknamed "Tyson", in reference to American heavyweight Mike Tyson, to the boos of the public.
He is knocked down three times, has a broken rib but gets up.
Commentators see the sequence as a form of self-sacrifice.
Or unnecessary relentlessness.
It was like “
watching his refusal to give in
,” former Prime Minister Ehud Barak had judged.
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In Israel, Naftali Bennett is scuttling his government
The ex-amateur boxer has a deep admiration for Mohamed Ali.
"
We learned from him that victory is the ability to stay up after everyone else has given up
," he wrote the day after the champion's death.
If for him politics is a combat sport…
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