Yair Lapid

People in Israel are sick and tired of the old politics.

Succeeding in life is a difficult business - you need to work 16 hours a day, face failures along the way, remember that nobody owes you a thing, and take risks.

When the Americans see someone like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg, who made billions thanks to their talent and determination, the first thing they say to themselves is, 'I want to be like him.' This, in many ways, is the engine that drives Western society: The desire to make it like the winners.

The win-win situation is the basis for America's entire business world. Instead of wasting our time attempting to defeat each other, let's find a way that will make both of us gain and go home satisfied. In Israel, it doesn't work because the only meaning of victory is seeing your rival's body lying trampled on the floor.

Social revolutions are never simple.

I feel we're at risk that a whole generation of young Israelis, who went to the army, work hard, pay taxes, one day will look around and say, 'Hey, this country is going nowhere.'

The Tower of David is important for Israel's heritage and existence because it is more than a tower, it is a symbol. It is more important than the Azrieli Towers.

The Palestinians must be brought to an understanding that Jerusalem will always remain under Israeli sovereignty and that there is no point for them in opening negotiations about Jerusalem.

The Golan Heights is an area in the north of the State of Israel that has no part in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I do not deal with threats and ultimatums.

Israel can't be the only country in the Western world not to have freedom of religion.

One of the hardest things is to create hope.

People like to invent enemies. It spares us the need to address complex worldviews.

Judaism shouldn't be the jailhouse of ideas but a liberator of ideas; not a disintegrator of people but what brings people together.

I don't feel we need a declaration from the Palestinians that they recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

I like Tel Aviv; I live in Tel Aviv, but our right of return is Jerusalem. We did not return after 2,000 years for Tel Aviv but for Jerusalem.

I want to live in a country that is not just a place but also an idea, and Jerusalem is the heart of the idea. There may be practical considerations, but a country cannot exist without an ethos, and Jerusalem is an ethos.

Israel was founded as a refuge for the Jewish people, but today it isn't a safe place. It is safer to be Jew in New York.

Politics - when it's not cynical, it can be a creation.

If you want to do stuff, you have to be able to handle controversy.

The Israeli public's willingness to enlist, the warm embrace for the soldiers and the residents of the south, and the desire to contribute and to give at any given moment really warm the heart, and it gives all of us strength.

Netanyahu needs to stand before the Israeli public and say, 'I failed.'

Instead of personal security, citizens are afraid to walk down the street in Jerusalem.

One of the greatest fears of the Arab world is a direct conflict between Israel and the Islamic State.

When someone doesn't react to changes, the changes turn against him.

I have written to Israel's friends around the world, including the U.S. Congress and the E.U., and asked them to make funding for the United Nations dependent on ending blatant discrimination against Israel at the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The Human Rights Organisation deceives the world by calling itself a human rights council.

Jerusalem will remain under Israeli sovereignty and will not be divided.

If you want to change a country, you're going to be bumped every now and then.

Israelis want peace and security, and Palestinians want peace and justice - these are two very different things, and this is the real gap we have to close.

I used to have so many opinions before I learned the facts.

How can Israel say that everyone is equal before the law - that you're equal before the law - when the law defines Judaism as the cultural, national and legislative basis for the state?

Judaism is a whole line of values that have existed for thousands of years, but the democratic idea is a new idea, and significant parts of it stand in contradiction to Judaism.

Yesh Atid is a Jewish, religious-secular party. Our DNA is center - both Left and Right. The difference between center-left and center-right is more emotional and hereditary than having to do with what people think about the Palestinians.

The Left doesn't understand the importance of God in the Israeli public discourse, and Yesh Atid does.

I don't reject caution, but you also have to be careful about caution because there's a stage when it turns into paralysis.

There is a clear interest within ISIS to drag Israel into a war with them. If they do so, they will be able to paint Israel as having an alliance with the states fighting against them.

There's always a reason not to do anything... to flee the need to make decisions.

Israel's master strategy needs to be moving toward a regional arrangement that will enable a full normalization of relations with the Arab states and the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel.

Israeli citizens deserve full-time ministers.

I urge the senior members of the political system to form as broad a government as possible that would unite the moderate forces from the Left and Right so that we will be able to bring about real change in the State of Israel.

I'm not telling you what to do on the Sabbath, and you won't tell me.

Corruption is when a politician uses public funds to deliver pistachio ice cream to his home and transfer garden furniture to his Caesarea villa, then requesting that the expenses be covered for the water in his pool and fights to get a private jet.

I am a man of tomorrow, but I also live my past.

The State of Israel was not established so that the anti-Semites will disappear but, rather, so we can tell them to get lost.

Hebrew is the language I use to thank the Creator and, also, to swear on the road.

I am a Zionist.

The views of religious-Zionist rabbis are of course worthy of being heard, yet they represent a very defined and very narrow camp within the Israeli spectrum. This is not the way to shape the perception of future division and brigade commanders.

Arab society features apartheid of women, apartheid of homosexuals, and apartheid of Christians, Jews, and democracy.

My children receive education that greatly emphasizes the fact they are part of a human group that has tradition, collective memory, and a state. I am a great believer in the need for Israel to be a Jewish state. I certainly believe my children will pass that on to their children.