Addressing the annual conference of the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) this week, Finance Minister Yair Lapid said the first person he had consulted upon taking office was President Shimon Peres. And what advice made the greatest impression on him? “Peres told me, ‘Yair, the most dangerous thing you can do is to do nothing',” Lapid said, reading from the teleprompter.
And what noteworthy deed did the leader of the country’s second-largest political party bring with him to the conference on the subject of A Changing Strategic Environment Requires Creative Thinking? Speaking to the hundreds of researchers, defense officials and diplomats in attendance, he revealed that “there’s no national security without economic security and there’s no economic security without national security.”