Operation seduction: Lapid captures Israel’s mainstream support

Throughout the entire coalition crisis surrounding the new Public Broadcasting Corporation — with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatening early elections over its launching — Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid was careful not to veer from the campaign discipline he decreed upon himself over the past year. He kept acting in an official manner on behalf of the entire nation at any cost.

While the chairman of the opposition, Isaac Herzog (Zionist Camp), contacted various political leaders in a hopeless effort to cobble together an alternative government and made a point of announcing what he was doing in media interviews, Lapid not only distanced himself from the initiative. He even expressed his reservations about it and dismissed its feasibility.