On Tuesday Yair Lapid threatened to leave the coalition if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did not go along with his demand for punitive sanctions (i.e. jail) for chareidi “draft dodgers.” Netanyahu as his wont immediately capitulated and ordered his defense minister Moshe “Boogie” Ya’alon who is on record as opposing Lapid’s entire approach to the draft issue to go along even though the coalition agreement excluded anything other than economic penalties for non-service.
On Wednesday Lapid put on his best Kiryat Ono voice and took to the podium in the Knesset to assure chareidi young men that neither he nor the government he appears to control have any desire to make them nonreligious. All they have to do is to ignore their rabbinic leaders who are keeping them in shackles and preventing them from fulfilling their duty to the country — a duty they surely recognize in their heart of hearts.
Cynics can at least explain Tuesday’s antics. Polls have shown Lapid’s popularity plummeting as the public has quickly recognized that he is over his pay grade as finance minister. One need not be an economist to be a good finance minister — Lapid’s predecessor Yuval Steinitz is a philosopher by training — but one must at least have the willingness to study and become informed on the subject at hand. Lapid’s mind has been too shaped by Facebook to have patience for any such study.
The threat to break up the government in contravention of the coalition guidelines was a demagogic attempt to distract attention from Lapid’s failures and declining poll numbers by throwing the familiar red meat of anti-chareidi incitement to the public.
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