Opposition leader and former prime minister Yair Lapid clarified on Monday his B'Yachad co-party leader Naftali Bennett's comments about not ruling out sitting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the next government, should Netanyahu meet the conditions set by the new coalition, were an unsuccessful attempt at irony.
Lapid criticized the mixed reactions within the political camp seeking to replace Netanyahu following Bennett's remarks.
"This is not a good time for irony. [Bennett] tried to say something ironic, and he clarified it," Lapid said. "We will not sit with [Netanyahu] under any circumstances. I have no patience for all the gloom. Sometimes you say something in a long conversation, and people take it out of context. We are not sitting with him."
"These things happen during elections. Someone says a sentence, and people seize on it," he went on to say. "The camp immediately sank into gloom and lamentation. I have no patience for that. There is hard work to be done. We are campaigning. Yesterday, we met with campaign headquarters directors from across the country, and afterward, we held a large conference. We presented our plan for those who serve, and that is what matters because it affects people's lives."
Lapid then called on the public to vote in the upcoming elections to replace the government and get the country back on track.
"If this government remains in power, there will be another October 7, another flydubai, and the lives of every Israeli citizen will continue to be mismanaged. People understand that no one is managing their lives. That is what they will vote on. We need to focus only on that," Lapid said.
"He is not legitimate. He should not be in the next government. This election is about the direction we are taking. Where is this country heading? We have a government under whose leadership a quarter of a million Israelis got up and left. The most productive segment of the population."
Lapid calls for a government that works for all voters, not just Right or Left
Lapid also pointed to the large number of doctors leaving Israel.
"There is a mass exodus of doctors. Do you know which doctors are leaving the most? Pediatricians. If you live in a country where you take your child to the hospital and your child receives worse treatment because the good doctor is in Madrid, you need to change the government and its direction," he said.
"The citizens who vote for Netanyahu are citizens of the State of Israel. You need to address every problem they have as though they voted for you. But democracy is the ability to replace a government when that government fails."
Lapid recalled the period when the "change government" was in power, arguing that the state provided security for its citizens.
"There was a government that we headed, and it gave Israel a higher level of security. We had a zero-tolerance policy. I launched Operation Breaking Dawn in Gaza with warnings that were one hundredth of those that existed before October 7, because our security doctrine said that we must respond immediately and with full force to even the slightest threat, and it worked."
"There was a sharp decline in the number of terrorism casualties," Lapid argued. "Our borders were quiet. Ultimately, what does that have to do with the composition of the government? We said from the very first day that our policy was one of zero tolerance."
Netanyahu's conduct ahead of Oct. 7 was 'detached arrogance'
He also criticized Netanyahu's conduct in the period leading up to October 7.
"I will say one more thing. There was no arrogance. There was vigilance regarding every intelligence warning," according to Lapid. "Every time I hear someone buy into this nonsense, they say they didn't wake him up, that I met him at 4:30 in the afternoon, and he still hadn't done anything. They had been trying to wake him up for months and months before that, and he refused to wake up because he knew better."
"This is exactly the kind of detached arrogance that comes from too many years in power. That is why we need term limits, not to get rid of one person or another, but so that no one sits in the same chair for 20 years, because you lose touch with reality."
No war against Iran expected ahead of elections, Lapid says
Lapid then explained how Netanyahu repeatedly manages to overshadow opposition leaders and dominate the media agenda, this time over warnings of a possible war with Iran.
"People say, 'Wow, he has taken over the agenda.' But the fact that the Israeli government is not functioning and is endangering the lives of citizens, I'm not sure how good that is for them. A prime minister can take over the agenda by saying there is going to be a terrorist attack or a war against Iran. Whether that is good or right for the State of Israel is a question voters need to ask themselves," he said.
"According to the intelligence information I am familiar with, there is not supposed to be a war against Iran before the elections. The problem, however, is that I do not trust them. They cannot do it because they do not know how to win. In a massive joint operation with the Americans, they failed to achieve a single objective because they do not know how to manage it."
"They cannot manage an operation in Iran. We need to replace the government and then plan what to do about Iran. There is no reason to carry out an operation in Iran before the elections, and there certainly is no government that can be trusted to know how to carry out the right operation in Iran."
Finally, Lapid offered his perspective on the revelations concerning Yonatan Urich's messages, taking the opportunity to criticize the prime minister's adviser and Channel 14.
"You ask me what worries me about the media?" he said. "What worries me about the media is that I see Channel 14 on, and I ask myself whether people understand that they are being lied to and that their lives are being poisoned. A criminal oligarch and his draft-dodging son bought a propaganda channel for the prime minister of Israel, and we all treat it as though this is a sane situation."
"Yonatan Urich received money from Qatar while it was helping plan the destruction of the State of Israel, and you ask me whether he can be in the Prime Minister's Office? In what world does someone receive money from a state that supports terrorism during a war, and then, when he is released from detention, the prime minister of Israel rushes to embrace him in front of the cameras?"
"One of our biggest problems is that completely insane things become normal on everyone's screens. This is the complete corruption of Israeli society."