Why is Yair Lapid quiet in the Israeli election campaign?

If anyone believed in the Likud election campaign, he could be excused for thinking that this election pitted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Cinderella’s seven dwarfs. And in this framework, Likud knows exactly who they want in the role of Dunga: Yesh Atid Chief Yair Lapid, someone they’re presenting as a lightweight who – if he led the nation – couldn’t even buy Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines let alone negotiate with Iran, US President Joe Biden or Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Lapid, no one is a fool, he is not taking the bait. In fact, if Oprah Winfrey had interviewed him on Sunday night, instead of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, and asked him, “If you were one of the seven dwarfs, which dwarf would you like to be?” He probably would have answered “Sleepy.” Why Sleepy? Because sometimes the best path to success at the polls is simply sleepwalking during the campaign: say little, limit your appearances, don’t make mistakes and let others mess things up. Yesh Atid’s campaign so far – keep Lapid in the background, just as Democrats kept Biden out of the spotlight in the final stretch of the US campaign. There are other similarities between the two campaigns. Biden was simply a return to normality, Lapid’s main motto is that the country needs a “healthy” government. Normal and healthy are close cousins.

Travel around the country and you won’t see Lapid’s face smiling at the cars passing by so many office skyscrapers. Turn on the radio and neither he nor his party substitutes are giving you endless interviews. On the other hand, hardly a day goes by without Netanyahu, Finance Minister Israel Katz, Education Minister Yoav Gallant or Minister of Environmental Affairs Gila Gamliel not being on a radio or television station or another. Unlike Naftali Bennett of Yamina and Gideon Sa’ar of New Hope, Lapid does not rule out any coalition partners – with the exception of Netanyahu. Unlike Yisrael Beytenu’s Avigdor Liberman, he is not blowing up the haredim. And unlike almost everyone, he is not hitting his opponents – with the exception, of course, of an occasional zinger aimed at Netanyahu. This time, Lapid’s campaign is of a different order. Benny Gantz dominated this type of campaign in the days before the first election of the current cycle, when he came out of nowhere to win 35 seats and challenge Netanyahu – without having given a serious political interview or having actually said something very important, thus allowing voters to see what they wanted to see in him. Lapid took a similar approach, albeit with some significant adjustments. For example, while the public didn’t know much about Gantz in 2018 when he entered the political scene – aside from the fact that he was chief of staff, and Israelis at that time still had a crush on chiefs of staff – the same cannot be said from Lapid. Gantz, even before he made his first political speech, was winning 15 seats in the polls – a sign that the Israelis shone with his personality, because at that point they knew nothing about his policies. But the Israelis know Lapid: his personality and his policies. He has been in the public eye since he started showing a talk show on television in the mid-1990s and being on the Knesset since 2013. Gantz was an unknown commodity, whose initial campaign strategy was to keep his mouth shut and promote someone’s image everyone can connect. The more he said it, the more likely he would alienate potential supporters – so it’s better to just be as quiet as possible. Lapid, by contrast, is a known quantity, so the benefits of his relative silence – he gives an interview here and there – are different. Because of eight years in the middle of politics, Lapid has already alienated his share of people. His interest in staying discreet is to deprive Netanyahu of a fundamental electoral asset: to be able to frame the election, again, as one of Netanyahu against the left. In a brief interview on Sunday at a Channel 12 conference with anchor Yonit Levi, Lapid – who made a great effort to avoid saying who would or would not make a coalition, and who refrained from attacking any of the other parties who tried to oust him. Netanyahu – said he would like to debate with the Prime Minister. But it is doubtful whether he really meant it. Because Lapid would go on stage and face Netanyahu would be to frame this election as a two-man race, something he is very interested in avoiding. He is even downplaying his own ambitions as prime minister, saying that it is more important to remove Netanyahu than to serve as head of the government. So why do you say you want to debate Netanyahu? Because he knows the chances are slim, the prime minister would agree with the challenge. Two weeks before the election, Lapid’s discreet strategy seems to be working: since mid-January, he won about a seat a week in polls, going from 13 to 20. Lapid has so far managed to stay above the fray and leave everyone make a lot of noise and create a sense of chaos. This increases the perception he wants to project: a sense that he can give the country a “healthy” government and a sense of stability, something he is betting that voters are hungry for. Be quiet, do not put your foot in your mouth and do not close the options. It’s a sleepy campaign, but judging by Yesh Atid’s steady increase in polls, it has so far proved to be quite effective.