Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid on Monday termed as a “trap” his stint as Finance Minister in the current coalition – he and Hatnua head Tzipi Livni were fired by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month for trying to hold a “putch,” leading to March elections.
“We went into the finance ministry a bit power drunk,” Lapid admitted to Galei Tzahal (IDF Radio). He added that his party members weren’t as attentive to others as they should have been, noting “we should have listened to advice more.”
Lapid added “I don’t know of anyone who is immune to mistakes. In the democratic system new people come, you don’t want the same people to be there all the time. When you come to a new place, you start from a small place and in the end you learn. I took a blow to the head more than once.”
Critics would argue that “power drunkeness” has remained a feature of Lapid’s management of the finance ministry, as he froze budget transfers by fiat to Israeli citizens in Judea and Samaria last February, last April and again last October. Even after losing his ministerial post Lapid continued to call on the attorney general to freeze funding for citizens in the region.
Coalition Coordinator in the Finance Committee MK Gila Gamliel (Likud) accused Lapid of holding “his party’s elections campaign at the expense of Judea and Samaria residents, just like he did to the hareidi public in the previous elections campaign.”
When asked whether he thought the situation in Israel is better two years later as he promised in his election campaign, Lapid said “the housing price has gone down a bit.”
“We were on the way, and that could be the reason we aren’t there still. Zero percent VAT is a part of a wide-ranging plan aiming to lower the housing prices,” said Lapid, referring to his controversial bill that was blocked in the last coalition.
When asked about the possibility of joining a coalition headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Lapid responded “I don’t rule out people or parties, but I will do everything so that Netanyahu will not be prime minister.”
“The primaries corrupt Israeli politics. In Likud they know they messed things up, that they took from citizens of the state a budget that they (citizens – ed.) deserve, and that everyone is looking at them saying again and again: ‘we’re sick of the corrupt.'”
