Yair Lapid, the man who would be king, is starting to lose altitude. Just under two months since he announced that he was quitting journalism and entering politics, Lapid is starting to get worn down. And now the polls are starting to show what could be, for Lapid, a long, slow, and painful descent until the country actually heads into general elections, sometime toward the end of the year or the beginning of next year.
It started two weeks ago with his academic degree issue. Lapid was accepted to Bar Ilan University without a bachelor’s degree, even though the requirements include a BA with distinction. Bar-Ilan said Lapid had been accepted based on his journalistic and literary accomplishments. The Council for Higher Education, however, called the university’s explanation “insufficient.” Lapid’s only response, posted on his Facebook page, was that he didn’t care about the degree, and that the reports were a politically motivated attack on him.
He didn’t say he may have a problem with the way the university bent the rules for him. He didn’t say that he should have maybe set a better example. He’s not talking about or displaying the kind of moral clarity and clean leadership that so many Israelis crave, and that he was always preaching in his newspaper columns. In fact he’s not saying much at all. Once every few weeks he updates his Facebook status responding to something, but beyond that, nada. Just status updates. That’s how he’s talking to people. Which, in today’s world, could be enough, but also disconnects him from a lot of other people who want to see him working the street, talking, in the flesh, about what he believes in and what he’s going to do to change things. The Israeli electorate is not all found on Facebook. By sticking to his current formula, Lapid runs the risk of people not taking him seriously.
He’s already being lampooned on Eretz Nehederet, the country’s top-rated political satire program, as a vacuous airhead, a good-looking pin-up, who focuses more on his pout than his politics. This show, like Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, has huge influence on how many Israelis brand their politicians. Once you’ve been typecast on Eretz Nehederet, that’s what many Israelis think of you.
Even the president of the Israel Democracy Institute Dr. Arik Carmon has, subtly, attacked the Lapid persona as a phenomena that strengthens the cult of personality over strengthening the political party. Carmon says that personification of politics needs to be weakened: the power of the central figure, the latest leader-celebrity to promise the Israeli electorate a way to the promised land. Carmon doesn’t want to see new, mid-sized, star-studded parties. He wants to see fewer, and bigger, mainstream parties that will stabilize the political system here and give the elected government a chance to govern, for the long-term.
How utterly predictable, and saddening, this all is. Lapid holds much promise, but he’s already tanking. Time will tell if his decision to go it alone and not join Kadima was the right one. Time will also tell how much staying power he has, and how much real depth and grit he can muster to fight his way through Israel’s political swamp.
