JEWISH WORLD

explained that he and other Pfizer executives were not going to “cut in line” to receive the shots. At the age of 59 and in good physical condition, he said, he planned to wait his turn based on the criteria determined by the state of his residence. In other words, he decided not to use his clout as the head of the company to be given special treat- ment. As a result, he got his jab less than a month ago and is wait- ing for his second. For his admirable stance to be used against him is both shameful and par for the course where the press — par- ticularly that which would like to see an end to the Netanyahu era — is concerned. T his brings us to the next bit of hype surrounding Pfizer’s can- celation. Having milked disingenu- ousness for all it was worth, local media outlets have begun to focus on the other “juicy” aspect of the story: that Bourla was warned that “aiding and abetting” Netanyahu’s election campaign could get him in hot water. The move to keep Bourla from coming began in mid-February, when a couple of “anybody but Bibi” academics directly urged the CEO not only to postpone his trip until after the election, but to refrain even from making “state- ments about new Pfizer initiatives in Israel.” You know, otherwise, Netan- yahu might take deserved credit for purchasing the vaccines early, above cost, and conducting the world’s most successful inocula- tion drive. Heaven forbid he reminds voters of that accomplish- ment. “[O]ur coming election is so incredibly critical that I find myself gasping for breath, day and night,” Weizmann Institute computer sci- entist and Israel Prize laureate David Harel wrote to Bourla. Such a visit, he argued, could “turn out to be a disastrous contri- bution to the destruction of Israel as a democracy, and indeed as the startup nation, with great contribu- tions to science, medicine and tech- nology.” No wonder Haaretz gleefully served as a mouthpiece for the mis- sive. Then there’s the anti-Netanyahu Achrayut Leumit (“national res- ponsibility”) movement, which launched a full-frontal assault on Bourla’s visit. The insignificant group’s so-called important contri- bution to the cancelation was the basis for two differing reports on the issue. According to one, Achrayut Leumit CEO Oshi Elmaliach sent a letter last Wednesday to Bourla, the prime minister and State Comp- troller Matanyahu Englman, in which he stated that a photo-op with the prime minister at this time con- stitutes “election propaganda” and is therefore a criminal offense. The other report claimed that Elmaliach appealed to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to intervene — and that the latter con- veyed his concerns about “prohibit- ed election propaganda” to Netan- yahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein. Thankfully, Bourla isn’t playing along with the Israeli media’s mes- sage, which is that Netanyahu has made cynical use of a vaccine whose effects aren’t fully known in order to curry favor with the elec- torate. He has faith in the product, which — as he told CNBC in December — “was developed with- out cutting corners from a company with 171 years of credentials … a vaccine developed in the spotlight, in the daylight, with all the data being put in a server.” Nor is he revealing the real rea- son for his postponement, which might actually boil down to genuine inconvenience. Fake news aside, Pfizer told Business Insider recent- ly: “We remain interested in meet- ing the scientific leaders and other important stakeholders who were vital to the successful COVID-19 vaccination program in Israel. Any company visit will likely occur once travel conditions improve and COVID-19-related restrictions are eased.” Ruthie Blum is an Israel- based journalist and author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring.’ ” News continued from page 4 Word that Bourla didn’t come because he hadn’t taken been vaccinated was pounced on gleefully by anti-vaxxers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended the arrival of over 100,000 doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine at Ben Gurion Airport last December. Credit Netanyahu for buying vaccines early and conducting the world’s most successful inoculation drive. lockdown on the most infected areas, because that would have sin- gled out haredi communities. As a result, large parts of the country that didn’t need to be locked down were shut anyway, resulting in eco- nomic devastation. Corona is Israel’s wake-up call. The haredi state-within-a-state threatens our long-term viability. Yair Lapid was the first among this generation of Israeli politicians to warn against the dangers of this relationship. Yet unlike Avigdor Liberman, who speaks of the haredim with contempt and period- ically requires a new internal enemy to energize his political campaigns, Lapid sees haredim as partners in the Israeli future. He has reached out to the haredi communi- ty, seeking dialogue, even as he insists that its relationship with the state must change. His approach is respectful but firm: He will neither incite nor back down. Though Netanyahu has attempt- ed to portray him as a “leftist,” in fact Yair Lapid is the first Israeli leader to articulate a coherent cen- trist politics. The centrist vision begins with Israel’s Declaration of Indepen- dence. The framers insisted on an Israel at once Jewish and democrat- ic: the state of all Jews, whether or not they are its citizens; the state of all of its citizens, whether or not they are Jews. Through Israel’s formative years, this definition was self-evident to both right-wing and left-wing Israelis. David Ben- Gurion’s Labor Party was commit- ted to Israel as a Jewish state, and Menachem Begin’s Likud was committed to Israel as a democratic state. In recent years, though, this foundational entwinement of Jew- ish and democratic identities has been under increasing assault. La- pid has defined defending the inte- grity of Jewish and democratic Is- rael as the core of the centrist mis- sion. T hat mission means ensuring that all parts of Israeli society, including the Arab minority, are treated as shareholders in the coun- try’s future. It also means ensuring that all parts of the Diaspora remain connected to Israel. A Jewish state is not the same as a Jewish commu- nity; it doesn’t belong to any one part of the Jewish people. The Israeli public space must reflect the totality of the Jewish experience; official Judaism cannot be entrust- ed to a single gatekeeper. To do so negates the Zionist commitment to Jewish peoplehood. The Israeli Center is the ground that holds together the paradoxes of Israeliness. We are at once Jewish and democratic, secular and reli- gious, East and West, the strongest power in the Middle East and the only country in the world living under the threat of a permanent death sentence imposed by many of our neighbors. Our complex identities and challenges defy sim- plistic solutions. Only the Center, I believe, can effectively navigate those complexities. I’ve spent much of my life as an Israeli voter being frustrated by one failed centrist party after another. Yesh Atid is the first centrist party that has proven its staying power — its ideological consistency and its ability to build a camp of devoted voters. Finally, I’m voting for Yair Lapid because he’s proven himself to be that rarest of Israeli politi- cians: a mensch. Compare his tone to other candidates: He focuses on the issues, avoids cheap shots, insists on treating us like grown- ups. And he has proven his willing- ness to sacrifice ego for the greater good, deferring to the three former IDF commanders in chief who took over Blue and White. Yet Lapid proved himself to be the only effec- tive political leader among them, the only one still standing. Over the years, we’ve watched Yair Lapid commit mistakes and learn from those mistakes. He has grown — in steadiness and deter- mination. He has earned our respect and our confidence in his leadership. Yossi Klein Halevi is author of the New York Times bestseller “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor” and of “Like Dreamers.” Netanyahu coddles the haredim, many of whom endanger all Israelis by ignoring efforts to control COVID. Lapid continued from page 9 JEWISH WORLD • MARCH 19-25, 2021 21