More than two months after the elections, when he is already in the chair of the opposition chairman, Yair Lapid looks back and analyzes the long road he has traveled since he left the media and entered politics. In a candid interview, he tells what made him embark on the journey, what has happened to him since then and how he dealt with the failure in the elections. The mistakes and achievements, the companions on the way and the friends he lost during the journey: Lapid does not hesitate to dig into his own guts, but what he finds there does not make him give up - but rather rush towards what he defines as his life's mission.
Watch the full interview with Yair Lapid
On video: Ben Caspit in an interview with Yair Lapid - part 3 (Niv Aharonson, Michael Braham, Reuven Castro, Yotam Ronan)
Well, before we start like this, the way you would open "Yair Lapid Chai Ba Aser" - take me for one moment that will go with you to the end of the last year and a half.
"Mauthausen concentration camp, I am standing with the Austrian Chancellor, the Austrian Foreign Minister, the Minister of the Interior, in front of a hundred cameras, and the Austrian Chancellor approaches the microphone and says, 'We came here because we want to apologize to Mr. Lapid for killing his grandfather.' And I think of Grandpa Bell, who was an unimportant man, he was a small lawyer in Novi Sad, which is not a city that is famous in any way in the world, with a beautiful woman from Budapest that he adored and a 12-13-year-old boy named Tommy."
"Then they take him and bring him to the concentration camp, cold blooded, and kill him. And I thought about it, if my father could see this moment, that the Austrian chancellor is standing and asking for my forgiveness for killing him, it was also a reminder of why I do what that I do. What is the big motive, what is the place from which we need to come to any action. So this is absolutely the most powerful moment, and there were quite a few, including getting off the plane in Abu Dhabi."
"The Austrian Chancellor apologized for killing my grandfather in front of a hundred cameras."
Lapid (Photo: Reuven Castro)
Get off the plane in Abu Dhabi and say thank you Netanyahu.
He didn't get it before he was replaced.
"True, I thanked him. But this moment in Mauthausen is more. We tend to sink into the details and into the moment, but life is not the moment but a bigger monument."
So are you a person with tears in your eyes at a moment like this?
"Yes, yes, of course. My father was a crybaby, you knew him. At all family events it is customary for my father to burst into tears and my mother says 'Tommy Dee, Tommy Dee'. I'm a little more on her side, I don't cry easily, but there I was with Tears in my eyes and also with some very strong feeling that I represent something bigger than myself, which is a feeling that accompanies you in these positions."
I hate to spoil this moment, because I'm one of those people who get excited, but your dad would have cried on November 1st and yelled at you, maybe even slapped you a little.
"I'm not sure. Four days before he died we were at Arison Towers in Ichilov,
It's a shame that you always have to cloud the atmosphere, because you know I'm the operative.
"Yes, that's right. So we saw the game, he turned to me in bed, all threadbare and that, already thin, and said to me, 'You'll see the rematch by yourself.' The night and we talk. A farewell conversation. Then he says to me, 'Listen, I want it written on my grave - did his best.' And I tell him, 'Nothing. Dad, you were the Minister of Justice, you did things, family.' Then he says To me, 'No, you can't say anything better or more beautiful about a person than that he did his best.' What doesn't depend on me doesn't depend on me."
"You will see the reciprocation yourself."
Lapid at his father Tommy's funeral (Photo: Nir Landau, Walla system!)
"We will fight for the things I believe in"
We'll get into that later.
I am intrigued by what motivates a person like you.
I gave you a lot of credit for leaving a very beautiful life, submitting Friday Studio, making a lot of money, living well.
To enter this hot shooter, to become one of the most slandered people in Israel, when the poison machine is full on you.
Frustrations, fights, stories, entanglements.
And now life goes by, you go to Paris less than you want.
What, Zionism?
"Two things. Personally, that I have a meaningful life, and a life with meaning is not something that can be taken lightly. I fight for the things I believe in, many times we won and sometimes we also lost, but at least I have something that I believe in and that I do, I live A life dedicated to him. And beyond that, and this really got stronger when I was prime minister, the understanding that if you're not satisfied with something - go take care of the whole system. And you can only do that in political life."
"When I gave my closing speech as Prime Minister in the Knesset last week, I said that more than being Prime Minister, I am proud that we passed the People with Disabilities Law, which is a law that fundamentally changes the state's entire attitude towards people with disabilities. In politics, you also sometimes go to take care of which hostel that there is some problem with him because the inmates were treated incorrectly, and then you say to yourself, 'Then I will take care of all of them.' Close to happiness that I know how to define it. Because I always tell people around me that happiness is not a product, it is a by-product."
"Happiness is not a product, it is a by-product."
Lapid (photo: Reuven Castro)
"We have children, you go to some graduation show, for example, and the child goes on stage and recites four lines and the heart explodes with fireworks of happiness," continues Lapid.
"And you didn't raise him to be happy, you raised him because it is our duty. This is what gives meaning to our lives. The fact that we are fathers, you and I, is something that is significant in our lives. Happiness is the by-product, happiness is the bonus you get for having lived, behaved in a way that has meaning towards things that are important to you."
The loss in the elections and the family pep talk: "They were depressed"
When did you realize you lost the election?
At night there was still talk that maybe Meretz or Balad would pass.
"When there were real results, we waited to see what the results would be."
What does Yair Lapid's depression look like?
"Short.
I don't have depressive tendencies."
No, but how do you grieve? You're sad, you're in black bile, do you drink some kind of drink?
"No, I haven't been drinking for 13-14 years."
At all?
"At all.
Does not drink or smoke.
Speaking of lies told about you.
The funniest was the thing with English.
Did you follow it?
I don't know how I remembered that.
Part of what the poison machine announced one day, that I don't know English.
Now, you and I were in New York in the 1980s.
All kinds of things can be said about me, but I know English."
Not English Netanyahu, but English.
"Almost as good. And it made me laugh a lot, because today my videos are uploaded, for example from a press conference with Biden and the speech at the United Nations, things like that, and I speak in English for 20 minutes, and then below there are 15 messages from bibists who say 'You see, he doesn't know English '.
And 200 people from Mish Atid say 'Tell me, have you gone crazy?
Listen to the video'.
I suddenly realized how scary this machine is, because it has no interest in reality.
Even when the opposite fact is placed in front of it, it is meaningless."
So how do you fight it? Let's say you don't want to go the way of the lie, but tattoo the lie and present the truth. Is this even possible?
"I'll tell you something that may not be good for me to say. Part of the problem is of course what happened to the media. It's not even the Israeli media, it's also in the world, but in Israel as usual everything is on steroids. When you and I become media people somewhere in the early 80s, The role of the media is clear to everyone, it's called the search for the truth. You go to look for the truth. At some point, when the Internet came and all kinds of other moves, it became uneconomical. You can't send a reporter for five days or three weeks to look for what the truth is and you needed a model Other".
"Then they found the model of balance, which the jurists always loved. They said bring both sides, let the public judge, it sounds democratic. What was completely missed is that it gives truth and lying the same status, and the lie in a situation where it has the same status, will always win. Because It's more colorful, it's more tailored to the audience's demands, it's usually immediate and easier, and we're in a situation where there's full media support for actually lying under the auspices of balance. And a media that's not willing to recognize that its job is not to balance, its job is to define what the truth is."
"The poison machine is scary."
Torch next to President Biden (Photo: Reuters)
Let's hope that the new communications minister will take care of it, Shlomo Karai.
"True, I have no doubt that Shlomo Karai is the figure we needed to return to the truth."
There is a closing of the circle here because Rabbi Mazuz, who is the Rabbi of Karai, is the one who said that you are worse than the Nazis.
"Rabbi Mazuz really saddened me. Because you know, he seemed like a nice man to me, and it was clear to me that someone was telling him stories. You asked about the depression earlier, so I'm not easily hurt and I don't get depressed by nature."
So let's get back to it, weren't you depressed by the election results?
"I was sad, depression is something else."
how are you sad
"Professor of Psychology".
what do you do when you are sad
"Usually brings the family together and talks to them."
And did you do it?
"Yes".
How was?
"They were so much sadder than me, that it ended with me encouraging them as usual on the occasion of the depression that attacked them. I told them 'this is a long business, it is made up of ups and downs. I told you from day one that I was going into politics and it would include both difficult times and less moments Good, and that we will be measured precisely in these moments, and I expect you, I expect myself, to recover."
Have you asked yourself where you went wrong?
"Yes, first of all beyond this wall there is an entire professional process in which we, as always in Beish Atid, learn lessons. We examine ourselves. But we also examine ourselves including the question of what was up to us and what was not up to us. Because the things that were directly up to us In light of the result, we were successful."
I will give you a tip, as someone who was also the Likud election day manager in Holon and also covered 5000 campaigns.
You were sure that your territory on election day was worth two mandates, but in reality Bibi's territory on election day was worth 2 and maybe more mandates.
You were arrogant.
Today it is no longer field operatives and transportation, it is digital and cyber.
They knew at any given moment where every potential Likud voter was, whether he voted, why he didn't vote, what needed to be done for him to vote.
And you slept.
"I suggest you and all of us stop the mythology a little. A year and a half ago he was the same Bibi, I was the same Yair, Yesh Atid was the same Yesh Atid, and the Likud was the same Likud, and they lost. Elections are a moment, they are much less affected than all the processes you describe And much more than the reality really. The reality really was security tension, there was violence, and the public reacted to the violence as it would react to the fact that now there is a cutting of the common branch on which Israeli society sits. In the end, the big things are the ones that determine elections, not the small things."
"In the end I encouraged the family."
Lapid with his wife Lihya (Photo: Yotam Ronan)
What would Lapid change himself - and what does no one know about Bennett?
If you could change yourself in one thing, what would you change?
"Eighty meters".
I knew you would say that.
"It's just, it's not really either."
If anything, if possible then ninety meters.
"How many are you?".
75, you were always two centimeters shorter.
"True, I admit."
That's why you don't like Gantz.
"That's not true, I get along with Gantz, we worked really well together."
Was he a good defense minister?
Yes, and as prime minister and defense minister we worked really well together, including the ability to put aside political differences and say 'now this room is sacred'.
I appreciated it then, and I appreciate it now."
"We worked really well together."
Lapid and Gantz (Photo: Reuven Castro)
Are you in touch with Naftali?
"Yes".
Did you talk after the election?
"Yes, Naftali is the biggest of the funny texters. Speaking of your depression question, he has some wonderful sense that if for a moment you still sink, at that very second a really funny WhatsApp arrives from Naftali."
I didn't know this side of him.
I know a lot of things about him, funny I didn't think he was.
"Yes, he knows how to be funny."
Can you tell how he made you laugh after you got in the head?
"I don't feel like I got it in my head, but I understood that this was the narrative."
Your voters feel it.
"They are not exactly my voters."
Listen, Yair Lapid, half the country is depressed.
"Right".
except you.
"I'm the one who tells them, 'Guys, depression is not a work plan. You've made an amazing achievement, and now we have to do a little more.'"
"The biggest funny texter".
Lapid and Bennett (Photo: Knesset Spokesperson, Noam Moshkowitz)
The greatest pride, the main regret and the friends lost along the way: "It's sad"
Listen, you have a good guy image.
A man of friends, who comes in well.
But when you check, the route you took is littered with the metaphorical corpses of friends who have been dumped by the side of the road.
People like the late Eli Moyal, Shlomi Lahiani, Shay Piron, Ofer Shelah. You and Ofer were full brothers.
"Yes, it's sad."
I hope I didn't slander you now.
"No, no.
I try to be a good person, it's important to me, but I also remember that it's a tough business.
This thing I'm in is a tough business, and that's a required quality.
It is required when you enter a cabinet room and say 'Okay, yes, you start bombing in an hour', and it is sometimes required in relationships as well.
And I think that after 10 years in politics, people recognize that I manage to be both things when needed.
Also to remain a good guy or a good person but at the same time recognize that this is a tough business, and sometimes if you want to survive in it, you have to be tough.
I was already finance minister, opposition leader, foreign minister and prime minister,
One thing you regret this year and a quarter?
When Naftali told me 'I'm going with Merkel near Vashem, to lay a wreath', and I had been a Knesset member for many more years than him, I had to tell him that he couldn't.
Because we will lose the majority by voting for the term limit law." And in the end it fell to one vote, Bennett's. What happened was that there was an assumption, erroneous of course, that at least for the laying of a wreath with the Chancellor of Germany for the last time at Yad Vashem, I emphasize, Germany and Yad Vashem, they would be State enough to offset him. Of course it didn't occur to them and the law didn't pass."
What more?
"I am not a person of regrets. Regrets are a very ineffective mood. I am a person of tasks. Everyone is built differently."
"It's sad."
Torch and dirt sent (Photo: Yoav Dudkevich)
And the thing you are most proud of?
Don't say the disability law because it goes without saying and I've seen how proud you are of it.
"Dawn, breakwater and one more thing I can't tell you."
Related to Iran?
"Can't say, and also the agreement with Lebanon. Which is the first agreement with an enemy country in many, many years. Together, this is not a bad package for at least six months."
So if you did in six months what a prime minister does in a term, why not let go, say come on, we'll live life, we'll go to Paris, we'll go back to the beautiful life?
"That's true, but I have a much more ambitious mission than that. My life's mission is to bring together the Jews and the Israelis, the elements of Israeli society and the strength of the Israeli collective against the values of the Declaration of Independence. And I know that sounds bloated and big."
You will not be able to do it without the ultra-Orthodox, and they are not with you.
"I'll do it with anyone who's willing to listen. Part of the job is to get people to listen to things they don't like either. That includes me. I never assign tasks to others that I don't assign myself. I'll probably have to listen to things I don't like either. I like it, but this is the task. Because the consequences of this are everything, equality in the burden, an agreement with the Palestinians, it's a million things, but you have to start from that. This is the starting point."
The consequences of this are that one day you will enter a room with Aryeh Deri, and you will listen to him instead of rehabilitating him.
"It was a bad exit, it's time to drop it. I already shook his hand a thousand times in the plenary after that."
Are you in any relationship?
"Not so much, but I for one am very, very satisfied, it's strange that Margi will be the minister of welfare. He and Ben Tzur, they are both fine. Both the minister of welfare and his friend the minister of welfare. There is also a deputy minister of welfare, I think that welfare has never been handled properly more strict".
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Political-political
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Yair Lapid
Naftali Bennett
Benny Gantz
Benjamin Netanyahu
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