Dear Yair Lapid, It’s Over Between Us-אין עתיד.

Dear Yair,

It makes me very sad to say this, let alone write this, but after 10 years of supporting you and your work through thick and thin, and after voting for you so many times that I have lost count, I am no longer able to call myself a supporter of Yesh Atid or of you. I wasted so much time working hard at getting you elected, and I am sorry for that now. Your total and complete silence these last 6 months regarding the cruel destruction of the Israeli Tourism industry by your fellow ministers has caused me to lose all faith in you. Your coalition has made a conscious decision to abandon the faithful employees of this sector who have paid high taxes all their lives.

I am one of the biggest anti-Bibi voters in this country, but I must acknowledge gratefully the support his government gave me and my colleagues after he closed the skies in March 2020. Exactly 3 weeks after you and your cronies took office, all forms of support to the Tourism sector were severed. Whatever ugly deal you had to broker with the heartless Avigdor Lieberman and the deaf PM Naftali Bennet to get where you are is of no interest to me and in fact makes me ill to think about.

When we finally had a chance in December to earn a few desperately needed shekels with the upcoming Christmas tourism, the mighty PM Bennett again closed the skies, ostensibly because he was going to protect his people from Omicron, like David fighting Goliath. Where were you then, Yair? Did you even try to change his mind? Given the fact that there was no proof in the world of the terrible dangers of Omicron, PM Bennett could have waited a few weeks to give us a chance to get our heads above water. But no…that was DEFINITELY not one of the things he thought about when making that bad decision which did nothing but delay the inevitable. He simply wanted to be a hero. Well, where I come from, heroes admit mistakes and clean up their messes. Yair, you have the power to change this. You could have sat down with PM Bennett, and helped him to admit that he took a chance but called it wrong. You could have convinced him to take responsibility and compensate the people who suffered so much from his hasty and rash decisions. You could have asked him to order Minister Lieberman to issue us unemployment benefits retroactively from July 2021 until tourists return in earnest. But instead, you have ignored our pleas for help, not even ever agreeing to speak with us.

Yair, I actually believed you were different and that with you in charge, things would change. Boy, was I wrong. You are just like all the rest of the politicians.

דברים שרואים משם לא רואים מכאן‫.

Unfortunately for you, I represent a lot of people in the tourism sector and their spouses and employees and their children who are old enough to vote. I reckon we are about 250,000 people or more.  Elections have been won and lost in this country over less than that. You should have thought about that before you abandoned your constituency.

Looking for new leadership,

Rena Magun