Within a week, Finance Minister Yair Lapid has managed to open two fronts vis-à-vis his own electorate. His voters — who have barely had time to recover from the austerity budget with which he burdened them despite promises to the contrary — are finding out that Lapid is circling them from the right, as reflected in the much-discussed interview with him published in The New York Times [May 20], in which he outlined his vision of the diplomatic process.
To be exact, it’s not actually a vision, but rather a string of skeptical remarks revealing him as a ''[Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] Bibi clone'' (As described by Knesset member Omer Bar-Lev in an interview with Al-Monitor on May 21). He does not believe it’s possible to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians; he opposes the division of Jerusalem and a freeze on construction in the settlements; he calls Palestinian Chairman Abu Mazen “one of the founders of the Palestinian victimhood doctrine” and he is doubtful that the Palestinians even want a state. In fact, even Likud party hardliners like Knesset members Danny Danon and Tzipi Hotovely, the darlings of the settlers, would gladly have signed off on the text of the interview.