Yair Lapid’s vapid comment shows us the rotten heart of the Israeli center
It’s hard to explain the position Yair Lapid holds in Israeli public life, because there’s hardly any Western equivalent to think of. Lapid, the son of former justice minister Tommy Lapid – who was a prominent journalist and columnist for ages – is the anchor of the Channel 2 Friday night magazine show, one of the most watched in the country; He also writes a weekly column in the most popular weekly supplement, Yediot’s “7 Yamim”.
On top of all this, he is expected to follow his father and announce his political ambitions. Lapid acknowledged this about a year ago, when he admitted he has such ambitions, and in the face of criticism informed the public he would quit his media positions six months before the elections – which is, alas, bullshit: Aside from the elections of 1988, no Israeli elections were ever held on time. Lapid denied recently he is about to leave his media positions soon.
He is considered, among the cognoscenti, to be the fraudest of the frauds. He claims to be a master of American culture – but it was noticed his knowledge is very shallow. He claims to be a Jewish Reform thinker, but published a book about the Bible full of embarrassing mistakes and misquotes. He is supposed to speak immaculate English – but was caught red handed by yours truly (Hebrew) at not being able to tell the difference between “forefathers” and “four fathers”. He is a lousy interviewer, a master of the softball question, whose main contribution to Israeli culture is the question “What do you consider to be ‘Israeli’?” He is also a radical centrist, naturally – and highly telegenic. Which, naturally, makes him a serious political candidate.
If you're not Israeli, screw your copyrights. Yair Lapid (Photo: Levy dudy, Cc-by-sa-3.0)
As you can see, I am not a fan. Why am I burdening you, gentle reader, with unnecessary information about a noxious personality? Because in his latest column, composed of 50 inane resolutions for the Jewish New Year (which I don’t celebrate; it’s not really New Year if you have to ask other people when is it due), there’s a very revealing note. Resolution #14 goes like this: “I will not download movies or albums by Israeli creators. It isn’t fair.”
Now, we can argue whether abuse of copyrighted material is theft till kingdom come. My position is it is, but I acknowledge that, as a creator of content, I am biased. What is clear here is Lapid considers such abuse as “unfair” – but only towards Israeli creators. The rest, as far as he is concerned, are fair game. Are you a struggling British singer? A promising Nepalese film maker? Screw you, says Yair Lapid. You were born to the wrong people.
This is Israeli – or, rather, Jewish; Lapid does not write “goyim,” but he might as well – exceptionalism at its worst. Lapid is pretty certain the vast majority of his readers won’t see anything wrong with his formulation. Those who do can be easily dismissed as “self-hating”. And that, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the Israeli center, which would be considered extreme right in most Western countries.
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Yonatan
Copyright infringement isn’t theft. Theft is permanent deprivation of use of an object.
There is an old saying about one profession. “You got a product. You sell it. You still got it.” It can apply to other professions.
Alex
Reactionary drivel. I don’t particularly think highly of Lapid, but that’s not the point. I don’t see him writing anywhere that foreign copyright is fair game. It probably escapes YG’s world view that Lapid is writing an article in Hwbrew, about the Jewish New Year, to an Israeli audience. YG’s summation is narrow-minded, presumes the worst possible explanation (why I refer to this piece, and to him, as reactionary) and self righteous in the worst possible way.
Yossi Gurvitz
@Alex,
OK, your move. Kindly explain the sentence “I will not download movies or albums by Israeli creators. It isn’t fair.” in a way which does not indicate the author couldn’t care less about non-Israelis’ copyright.
Clif Brown
He appears to know one thing about America – that an “anchor” will be forgiven just about anything. Keep the hair just right, use the voice properly, be able to read from a prompter and turn pages on a desk and you are in for as long as you like (this doesn’t go for women). Take up flying, worm-farming, yogo, politics and the people will love you for it. And that’s the problem: the public permits such beautiful people the power that it does. Was it Tolstoy who said how amazingly powerful is the delusion that beauty is goodness?
So expect him to be in office soon.
Henry Weinstein
Is it so surprising a George Clooney look-a-like don’t care much about copyrights and promises he will not download Israeli movies?
Brian
Yonatan, only an Israeli would dispute the fact that copyright infringement is not theft. You are denying the creator of the medium to earn money by infringing on his/hers rights!!!!
Comment edited by moderator.
richard allen
Can’t argue with much, but holy cats is he good-looking.
Historian
Better yet, Yossi, perhaps you could explain how you extrapolate from Lapid’s comment that there’s a “rotten heart of the Israeli center?” Do you have evidence other than what Lapid didn’t say that you claim he did say?
Alex
If someone suggested, “YG, you go on so much about the dysfunction in Israeli society that you are clearly an enemy of the Israeli state,” would that be a valid assessment? Or if someone suggested that your exclusive observations on Israeli issues indicates that you have no interest in the injustices elsewhere in the world – or worse yet, actually support injustices elsewhere? The answer is clearly no.
I’m not going to break down the fallacy in your argument any further. You really ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Henry Weinstein
Tag: I don’t own the copyright
Rabbi Shergill sings Challa for Yossi
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0RHvEcwFpg&feature=player_embedded
Welcome to http://www.rabbishergill.com/
Yossi Gurvitz
Alex, when you find me writing “Israelis should not suffer injustice, it is unfair”, you’ll have a point. At the moment, I don’t see it.
Alex
Likewise, when you show me where Lapid writes “I don’t care about non-Israeli copyright, go screw the foreigners,” I’ll concede that you have a point. At the moment, I don’t see it.
Henry Weinstein
What a tsunami in a glass of water!
Am I the only one to think infamous Resolution #14 was quite simply deadpan humour: Ok next year I will not download movies or albums… by Israeli creators, eh eh.
directrob
“The question here is whether Israelis’ right to read the book outweighs his copyright.”
.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/egyptian-author-threatens-to-sue-israeli-palestinian-ngo-for-translating-book-without-permission-1.322209
GuiltyFeat
All due respect, Yossi, but this is a pointed article with a very weak hook. I couldn’t give two hoots about Lapid and your summary of his character and ambitions is perfectly acceptable, but to claim that his facetious non-statement in a throwaway list for the holidays proves that he is an unashamed Jewish-supremacist is just a leap too far.
This is a silly piece that exposes more about your antipathy for the man than it tells us about the vapid TV personality himself.