A prime minister who flies for a state visit abroad during an election campaign is a fascinating spectacle. The respectable presence of journalists from the best media to crack a political show that is half a briefing off a record and half a campaign show.
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It all becomes a matter of timing. Every such visit traditionally takes place in the shadow of the constant suspicion that the prime minister will take advantage of the political stage available to him for his political purposes by virtue of his position. Not only visits abroad, but also political and security actions approved by prime ministers close to the election, are automatically marked as “political acts for electoral upgrade.” Attacked the nuclear reactor in Iraq on the eve of the 1981 elections, not out of electoral considerations.
When in September 2019, a week before the 22nd Knesset elections, Benjamin Netanyahu took off for the Russian city of Sochi to meet with President Putin over security coordination and the situation in Syria, not just the Israeli press , But also the Russian reporters who came to cover another Putin political meeting, were convinced that their president is serving as a stand-in in the Israeli prime minister’s election campaign.
Netanyahu himself would also have made the visits leading up to the election friendly and accessible from the point of view of the media. His traditional rounds during the flights, when he would go from first class to the ranks of reporters for “neither recording nor attribution” conversations, were mostly political. While the political issues, namely the nature of the visit, were pushed aside and remained the domain of the Prime Minister’s Office.
In practice, the favored Israeli custom of automatically suspecting the prime minister as one who utilizes political resources for election purposes does not correspond to the reality on the ground. And the reality is that the political situation has almost never determined the political future of prime ministers. Just as a complex political situation does not necessarily constitute a cause for loss in an election, so too political achievements, impressive as they may be, constitute a mere political bonus. What really matters is the inner arena. The name of the Israeli prime minister is also aimed at when he is physically on a plane on the way to the White House, for a speech in Congress or for a meeting at the Elysee Palace.
This is the opinion of the journalists who accompanied Prime Minister Yair Lapid this week on his first visit to office. The quick visit, barely five hours on Parisian land, was transferred to a torch within the inheritance package from Naftali Bennett. For Bennett, the meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron was planned as another point in a series of visits between the United Arab Emirates and the UN General Assembly in New York at the end of September.
Relying on past experience, some of the media even preferred to send a delegation of political rather than political reporters. No major innovations were expected there: neither in the Iranian issue nor in Israeli-EU relations. The political process is also not really on the agenda. On the other hand, hearing Lapid in the less meticulous and restrictive atmosphere of the “plane corridor conversation” – precisely this seems to be the interesting point of the visit.
But reality had its own dynamics. If Netanyahu during the election period was a statesman who actually functioned as a full-fledged politician, Lapid as prime minister strongly insists on leaving the politician Lapid at home. The one who went out to reporters on the plane was the statesman Torch. Much less a snob who shoots witty answers, much less a politician who remembers well how to talk to journalists because he knows what they expect from him.
He spoke briefly, was focused and even self-contained. This is despite the fact that the one who was waiting to be greeted at the Elysee Palace was Emanuel Macron, who is considered one of his best friends in the international arena. The kind of visits that are all profit: a lot in common, less disagreement. Not really the Netanyahu-Obama format on the eve of the election.
Builds bridges
Lapid, of course, is no less aware than the rest of the country of the fact mentioned here earlier. Neither the smiles nor the cordial hugs with Macron will arrange for him and Lish Atid the seats at the ballot box. The policy appearances serve him for the longer term. They build it, brick by brick, as a leader, as someone who is far beyond a successful and sophisticated politician who knows how to run a party.
The prime minister began investing in his state-of-the-art image years before he entered the bureau. In that sense his visit to Paris will certainly do the job, as will the following stations on the schedule: a visit by US President Biden to take place next week, a performance at the UN General Assembly in late September and possibly more flights, meetings and performances to enter his plans as prime minister until the election.
Torch is good at public appearances. He has fluent English, and most of all he has credit and advantage over his main rival in areas that during Netanyahu’s time were considered hostile or less important, such as US Democrats and EU leaders. He will be welcomed with open arms at any station neglected by Netanyahu. Lapid invested heavily in building the bridges.
Netanyahu, who for several campaigns was careful to brand Lapid as a direct competitor, even though in practice he was not the main opponent, this time really accepts Lapid – and even as prime minister that all the political and political possibilities are at his disposal. It can be assumed that a speech in English in front of the UN General Assembly in Lapid’s performance is expected to get Netanyahu out of the way much more than Bennett’s UN speech, in which he only lost without gaining.
Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Yonatan Zindel)But all the nice bonuses of the policy appearances for Torch himself are nothing more than a tactic. The strategy he chose from the moment it was announced that he would take office is to be the ideal prime minister, according to the book, the most correct, one who is not wrong and does not overlap in anything and any marginal detail. Just as a prime minister should be.
While assigned to him in office, Lapid will make every effort to be a prime minister on whom Yair Lapid the publicist can write a column “This is how a good prime minister behaves.” No error is out of the question, no corner circle. Everything that Lapid – the citizen, the publicist and the strategist – would expect from the Prime Minister of Israel, Lapid the Prime Minister of Israel will try to carry out.
This is the line, and this is the obvious aspiration. Therefore, among the first meetings that took place immediately after the overlap with Bennett, there was a meeting on the subject of prisoners and missing persons. That’s why the Lapid couple packed their famous red suitcases and came to stay in Balfour, even though the official residence is still far from being ready for residence. That is exactly why, during a visit to France, Lapid replied to journalists who wanted to talk politics that “we will talk about this when we return to Israel.” Yair Lapid’s politics is not about politics, but about running the country.
This is the line that we will see, at the very least, until the closing of the lists for the Knesset, ie until mid-September. Then, after the map is clarified and after he returns from the UN General Assembly, Lapid will have no choice but to go into political work.