Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July 23 decision to remove the metal detectors placed at the entrance to the Temple Mount did not manage to completely defuse the crisis in regard to the Palestinians and the Muslim world. Tension still lingered in the air July 31 as the chairman of Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, and members of his faction toured the high-friction areas surrounding Jerusalem with Border Patrol officers. His Facebook post that day oozed with patriotism and a statesmanly vibe, featuring images of him standing beside Border Patrol members.

Just a day earlier, after convicted Hebron shooter Elor Azaria's appeal was rejected, the Yesh Atid chairman declared his support for the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, Gadi Eizenkot, and the military court “for standing firm on behalf of the IDF's values.”

Scrolling through Lapid's very active Facebook page reveals that he zealously maintains the same campaign discipline that resulted in some impressive results in polls conducted over the last year and a half. He is patriotic and committed to official values; he is on the warpath against BDS (for boycotting Israel), and he is appealing to the soft right. This all came to an abrupt end about three weeks ago, on July 11, when Avi Gabbay was elected head of the Labor Party. Suddenly, Lapid lost 10 seats in the polls, most of them to Labor. Until then, Lapid had held the title of Netanyahu's main challenger for the role of prime minister. With Gabbay's election, he faced a crisis.

A frantic, nervous interview that Lapid gave to Channel 2 the day after Gabbay's election, and his poor showing in the polls (at least as far as he was concerned), indicated how panicked he was. The deck had been reshuffled, and Lapid was booted out of his near-certain place as the person running head-to-head with Netanyahu for the Prime Minister's Office in the next election. Now he would be forced to contend with a revival from the Labor Party.