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Why it's crunch time for Israeli left

The Israeli left is at its lowest point in its history and must reinvent itself to survive.
Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid attends a women's committee convention in Tel Aviv March 1, 2015. The era of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ending, with Israeli voters clearly more concerned about economic and social issues than about security or fears over Iran, a leading election candidate said on Monday. Lapid, a telegenic former news anchor and TV host, leads the centrist, secular Yesh Atid party ("There's a Future"), which emerged out of the cost-of-living protests that swept Israel in 2011. Picture
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In February, Yesh Atid Chairman Yair Lapid was a guest at the Globes Conference, where he explained why the left would not win an Israeli election in the next 20 years. Lapid argued, “You see it demographically, by age and by opinion. Every year, people who believe in leftist ideas die, and people with right-wing and centrist ideas are born. People see that they are stabbed with knives and see the madness of the world around us, and the numbers say that the left will not win an election here. The center will. That’s where we’re headed. No one could sell me as a leftist; my father was a [Menachem] Begin man.”

This statement, backed by moves, actions and declarations, explain Lapid’s rise, which reached its latest zenith in a Sept. 6 poll that indicates his party would have won the most Knesset seats had elections taken place that day. 

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