Prime Minister Yair Lapid addressed the audience of Israel Hayom's election conference Thursday, apologizing for not making it to the event due to last-minute changes to his schedule. We provide you below with a transcript of his full remarks in the pre-recorded video message.
"I apologize for not being there with you, I planned on being there, but we have a historic agreement with Lebanon, and there is a government meeting today in which we will be authorizing it.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
"We will be going to elections in a few days, and in these elections, we atypically really have to choose between two options. It is not vague; it is precise, it is clear. We will be choosing between the past and the future in these elections. In these elections, we are offering you the future, and the other side is trying to drag us back to the past.
"It is taking us back to the insults of the past, to the deprivations of the past, primarily to the hatreds of the past. The other side is telling us that we are in a civil war – the Jews against the Israelis, [Itamar] Ben Gvir against the IDF. Conspiracy lovers against democracy, Arab haters against those who believe in a life shared with one another – we will not descend to this level. They are trying to make us choose between our parents and our children; we will not allow them to do this.
"If there is one thing all Israelis have in common it's that there is nothing we will not do for our children. There is nothing we will not do so that they will not pay the price for our mistakes and quarrels. We believe in the future, and the future belongs to the people who believe in an Israel that is both Jewish and democratic, both nationalist and liberal, both strong and law-abiding. A society that rises above past sins and does not stoop down lower into them.
"We offer you a state and society in which women have a voice and representation, in which the LGBTQ community is granted its rights, a state that understands that it is its obligation to be a part of the battle against the climate crisis.
"We offer you a state that knows how to launch an operation in the Gaza Strip but also how to complete it in three days – time without losses on our side; a state that repaired its relations with the American administration, rebuilt its relations with the European Union, with Turkey, with Morocco, with the Gulf states; a state that made a historical agreement with Lebanon and stopped the Iran nuclear deal; we offer you an improved, law-abiding democracy in which its judicial system has its flaws, but the Supreme Court is not the enemy; it is the place that protects the weak and ensures the authorities are not tainted by corruption.
"We have problems, they have accumulated over many years, and it is time to solve them. Only the way to solve them is not to look for those to blame, and it is certainly not to fight all day long, but rather to work hard and, above all, work together. The Israeli citizens do not care who is to blame for the education crisis but who will fix it. They do not want just to be angry over the last terror attack but also to prevent the next one. They are right, and they are wiser than the political system that runs them.
"The future is not built on blame but on the actions we take today for tomorrow. Finally, there is a government that is seriously tackling the cost of living; this will not succeed in one day. There is no single action that you can take, and the cost of living goes down; it consists of taking many small, exhausting, but effective actions.
"Just this month, we saw to the lowering of the prices of 97 products via standard changes. This year, we doubled the number of beginnings of construction, passed the import reform through this government, lowered the price of gas, we brought foreign retail chains, such as Carrefour that lower prices. And still, it is too expensive here. We are a rich and strong state with citizens that cannot make ends meet. It is our job to address this and work on this. We are not avoiding it, we are not blaming others, we wake up in the morning and work – this is our life's mission.
"We need to lower the level of violence on our streets; it is unacceptable that people are afraid to go outside in the mixed cities or drive on the roads in the south of Israel. It is unacceptable that there are murders in the Arab society on a daily basis. So, we established an inter-ministerial team that is fighting the violence in the Arab society. Dozens of criminals have already fled Israel, we caused detriment to their money, we narrowed the scope of their activity. This is not enough, but it's a start. Now we need to continue.
"We placed the law-and-order program on the table – the recruitment of another 5,000 police officers, another 26 Border Police companies, an Israeli guard of 30 thousand people. Flooding the streets with uniforms and weapons, this is what will help, this is what will bring change. Today, I am in this place, the place to which all information flows.
"On security, on the economy, on education, the labor market, on the demography. All the undercurrents of Israeli society, all the government work plans. And precisely from this position, I will tell you something that might surprise you – I have never been more optimistic about Israeli society's future. I have never been more hopeful for this state and the world where our children will live. I am optimistic because it depends on us, because Israelis are wonderful, and they are only waiting for someone to offer them vision and hope and a life shared together.
"They do not hate those that served with them in their company, they do not hate those who think differently from them. Our future depends on our actions in the coming years; if we go backward, we are in trouble. But if we decide to invest in the future, we can be one of the world's top ten most successful countries. We have all the ingredients for success. We have gas that comes out of the sea, we have new economic agreements with countries of the Middle East, we are the most powerful military power in the region, we have a sophisticated private market that creates technologies and adapts technologies at a rate unmatched anywhere in the world. Above all, there is much intelligence here, much creativity.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
"We put the 'one million people for high tech program – it will make the Israeli economy leap forward. A million people for high tec is another 4 million people for the second and third labor pools, which will all make more money at the end of the month."
The prime minister continued, "There is no week in which I do not have conversations with foreign leaders. Yesterday was with Albania's prime minister and Holand's prime minister at noon. Everyone says the same thing – we want to learn from you, we want to work with you, we want to understand this miracle of the startup nation that is leading the world, and find ways to cooperate with you. If they want to work with us so much, why do we not want to work with one another? The Israeli future is something we build together – Right and Left, religious and non-religious, center and periphery, Jews and Arabs.
"Our government is made up this way because our nation is made up this way. The Israeli future is something that will be built thanks to a combination of vision and organized work plans; it will be built if everyone understands that they are a partner; it will be built if there will be an honest and fair government of law-abiding people, who work hard, who believe in loving Israel, who believe they have only one job in this world – to build the state in which our children will live. This is what we want; this is what we believe in. We will not go backward; we will continue forward, to the future, focused on the prize. Each of us has a role; each of us has a part in this future. We came to change; we will continue to change. Thank you."
