The position of the Israeli president is ceremonial, rather non-political with limited powers. He is not entitled to attend the Cabinet meetings or to object to Knesset (parliament) legislations, neither can he leave Israel without an official permission, nor dissolve the Knesset or sack the government where the effective executive power lies with the prime minister. The current President, Reuven Rivlin, is a lawyer who began his political career in the Likud party in 1988, after which, he became a member of the Knesset and served as its president twice, between 2003-2006 and 2009-20013. Yet, he now appears with a political position different from that embraced by his party.
Rivlin, who on different occasions opposed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies, declared nearly three weeks ago that Israel had no option but to think of reaching agreements with the Palestinians. “We have to start thinking of the future and how to get out of the political impasse with the Palestinians. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains as the central issue even if our eyes are closed”, he said.
The Israeli president had previously opposed a plan to ban the Muslim call for prayer from mosques (Adhan), saying a related draft law would show Israel as a democracy for Jews only, acting within a set of ethnic and religious standards in drafting laws against Muslims, not against a noise. He went on to say that “as a small boy, it was a source of pride for Jerusalem to hear church bells, the sound of Muslim Moathen (call for prayer) along with a siren signalling the beginning of a Jewish ‘Sabbath’ with the sounds of prayers from Jewish synagogues”.
Although he is known as a hardline politician, Rivlin’s political stand is different from that of Likud led by Netanyahu, the party known for its rightist extremist agenda. Rivlin has said that “Israel is defined as a Jewish state, but we should not forget that it is defined at the same time as a democracy. I call on the Jews and my Arab brothers also to avoid incitement”. He urged the Palestinians from 1948 areas to enlist in the civil service, a demand they have unanimously rejected. He explained that “we live in cooperation with each other in one society and one state”. Moreover, Rivlin sharply criticised Israeli rightist politicians who were promoting the notion of stripping the 1948 Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship, describing their move as unpractical and unethical because Jews and Arabs are destined to live together, he said.
While speaking of the need to end the impasse with the Palestinians, Rivlin is known as a staunch supporter of Jewish colonies. He has made two visits to the council of Jewish colonies in the occupied West Bank since he became president in the midst of Israel’s war on Gaza Strip in 2014. He has openly declared that “[colony] in the land of Israel represents the right of the Jewish people to the land of its fathers and grandfathers”. He reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to fight what he called as the wave of terrorism against Jewish colonists. In both visits, he tended to make a connection between the “liberation of Jerusalem and the West Bank” i.e. the 1967 war, and what he termed as the return of the Jewish people to its land.
Rivlin rules out the possibility of a permanent peace agreement between Israel and Palestine in the near future because of the lack of trust between the leaderships and the people, he said. He added that seeking to achieve a permanent solution is doomed to failure, which may lead the two people to more despair. However, the Israeli president has never concealed his opposition to an independent Palestinian state. Nevertheless, Merav Alush Levron shed light in Israeli newspaper Haaretz on the Israeli president’s position. He said Rivlin spoke more than once of his support to a confederation of two states, Israeli and Palestinian, with open borders, united Jerusalem with a joint administration of its holy sites and two sovereign democratic powers. He said it was an initiative for “two states-one homeland” that proposes a confederation, with courage in approaching the conflict and the possibility of making a breakthrough in the stalemate where political debating has arrived. “Levron said by supporting [colonies] to remain where they are, the initiative provides an answer to the practical and ethical difficulty of evacuating the [colonists], and a solution to the right of return problem by proposing open borders with rights gradually allowing Palestinians to live and work in Israel as citizens”.
Yoel Marcus wrote in the same newspaper, saying that the hardliner Rivlin now appeared as the president (of the people) working for peace and standing like a wall in the face of powers threatening to bring down the Israeli democracy (by pushing for more repression against Arabs from the 1948 and 1967 areas). In a further comment on Rivlin’s position, an editorial in the newspaper predicted that he would not be a president of Israel, but a president of the greater Israel and would use his position to advance Jewish colonies in the West bank — a thing he highly cherishes.
Finally, wasn’t it he who had said: “I prefer to accept the Palestinians as citizens of Israel, instead of dividing the state. We must annex the West Bank (within a context of confederation)”? This is how Rivlin differs with the broad lines of the ruling Likud.
Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman is the chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia.
