Yair Lapid
Yair LapidElad Gutman

Yesh Atid chairman and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid spoke on Wednesday evening at the start of a conference of activists marking 100 days since the establishment of the government.

Lapid thanked the activists for their activities in the last election campaign and said, "This government has only existed for 100 days. It has already changed the country. We kept our word. We restored normalcy. We created something new. Something the whole world is looking at."

"The whole world wants to learn the new model. A unity government based on the idea that you do not want to defeat the other side, but rather to work with it. A government which says to its citizens: Disagreements are not what separates us, disagreements are the process that leads us to a better outcome."

Lapid criticized the opposition in the Knesset, saying, "Naftali Bennett manages to smile when he hears opposition members shouting 'traitor' and 'swindler' at the Israeli Prime Minister. I do not know how he does it. I cannot do it. I cannot help but be shocked by the hatred they have created. It does not bother me that the opposition is aggressive. It bothers me, and should disturb every Israeli citizen, that they do not want us to succeed even if it is good for the state. They want the state to fail, just so that we do not succeed. It will not help them. This government has already changed the state. You can agree with it, you can disagree with it, but it is a normal government of normal people, who come from the right place."

The Foreign Minister sought to send a message to his coalition members and said, "I want to warn my friends from all coalition parties about the disagreements in which you are right. If you are right but weaken the government, the coalition, the unity between us along the way, then what good have we done? If something does not seem right to you, we will work on it together, quietly, we will reach agreements between right and left. This is the specialty of the center. To reach compromises. Compromise is not a bad word, it is the basis of living together."

"The whole idea is in the common good, that it will not be 100% as I want and it will not be 100% as you want, but it will happen. The quarrels only make happy those who want to see us fail. This government is further proof of the power of Israeli democracy. Of the idea that power belongs to no one, because it belongs to everyone. 100 days have passed. This is just the beginning, but this is a great start, and it's all thanks to you," said Lapid.