Post date: Jan 23, 2013 3:42:17 PM
In a matter of months, Yair Lapid has turned from heartthrob television news anchor into a rising star of Israeli politics, leading a new centrist party that came from nowhere to second place.
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL (JANUARY 23, 2013) (CHANNEL 10) - Yair Lapid, Israeli TV star-turned-politician and a leader of a new centrist party has proven to be an attractive coalition partner for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party.
Lapid's Yesh Atid (There is a Future) party should have 19 seats, the interim count showed - a stunning result for a newcomer to politics in a field of 32 contending parties.Lapid won support amongst middle-class, secular voters by promising to resolve a growing housing shortage, abolish military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students and seek an overhaul of the failing education system.
"You didn't ask how I feel which is unfortunate because had you asked me how I felt... (Reporters: How do you feel?) I will tell you that I am very excited and thank you so much for waiting and I will see you all at Beit Sokolov (party headquarters)," Lapid told reporters outside his home late on Tuesday.
In an address at his party headquarters he said: "Great responsibility was laid upon our shoulders tonight. There was one sentence echoed throughout this election campaign, from Kiryat Shmona to Sderot, from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv from Metula to Eilat, everywhere we stopped there was always someone who stood up and said - don't forget us when you get there."
Lapid's late father, Yosef, tried as a justice minister to curb the political power of ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties. Now the son is gaining popularity with younger voters by promising to relieve a housing shortage and abolish military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students.
Lapid, who anchored the news for an Israeli network after hosting a late-night TV show in the 1990s, quit television a year ago. He entered politics after a wave of protests over high living costs swept Israel in the summer of 2011.
Lapid stirred media attention with a bit of showmanship, drawing a red line through a cartoon depiction of a bomb listing power, water, petrol and housing price rises that have hit Israel's middle class under the Netanyahu government.
This presentation mimicked Netanyahu's own sketching of a red line through a cartoon bomb at the United Nations in September, when the Israeli leader said Iran was moving closer to the ability to produce a nuclear weapon.
Interviewed at his Tel Aviv home before elections, the former athlete spoke of the nuclear threat from Iran.
"Yeah well, like the majority of Israelis I agree to the fact that if we will come to the point of no return in which will be obvious that if we will not go there, Iran will have a nuclear bomb, then Israel should do something, they should go there and bomb the facilities of the nuclear problem of Iran," Lapid said.
Acknowledging the possibility he would join a Netanyahu-led cabinet, Lapid said he would press the prime minister to renew peace talks with the Palestinians, though he sees little chance of reaching an agreement soon.
"We should manage the crisis, we should have an agreement, we should do our best to have some sort of an agreement, I'm all for going back to the negotiation table," said Lapid, who envisages Palestinian statehood in occupied land, and Israel removing some of the settlements it has built there.
But, Lapid added, Israelis "lost a lot of faith in the goodwill of Palestinians" after rocket fire from the Gaza Strip persisted following the pullout of Israeli soldiers and settlers in 2005 and Hamas Islamists opposed to Israel's existence took control of the territory.