New Israel's President, Netanyahu Dislike Each Other - Expert

Subscribe
Reuven Rivlin, a veteran nationalist politician and supporter of the Jewish settlement movement, was chosen by Israel’s parliament on Tuesday as the country’s next president. He now faces the difficult task of succeeding Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate who became an all-star on the international stage.

Reuven Rivlin, a veteran nationalist politician and supporter of the Jewish settlement movement, was chosen by Israel’s parliament on Tuesday as the country’s next president. He now faces the difficult task of succeeding Shimon Peres, a Nobel peace laureate who became an all-star on the international stage.

Daniella Grutsky-Ekshtein, a political counselor at the Israeli Embassy in Moscow, was very pleased with the outcome of the elections:

"Yesterday, it was a big celebration for democracy, for the state of Israel. And a newly elected President is always good news. Of course, Shimon Peres is an admirable person, is someone that every citizen in the state of Israel looks out for and, of course, Reuven Rivlin will have big shoes to fill in.

But I must say, regarding Reuven Rivlin, that he is a very deserved man. He served in the Israeli politics for decades in prime positions and has shown that he is a very pragmatic man.

As you previously said, he is part of the Likud Party and we know that his political views are somehow different than Shimon Peres's, but this is a democracy and if one holds a different view, as long he is moderate and a very reasonable man, as Reuven Rivlin has shown in the past, I have no doubt that he will serve the citizens of Israel only in the best way he can.

President Peres is an admirable person with extraordinary relationship with other leaders around the world. One of them is the Pope, of course, as well as Abu Mazen, they have long-lasting relationship.

And by going to the Vatican, by going to Rome, he said "yes" to an invitation, he said "yes" to a religious dialog that Israel understand as a very important one, as we have all the three religions in the Holy Land. And by reaching out hand we once again show that Israel is willing to work for peace, is reaching hands towards the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, establishing a government with Hamas Prime Minister Abu Mazen has said "yes" to terrorism and not to peace. We see this past action by President Abu Mazen as problematic to the state of Israel.

Hamas is a terrorist organization and its actions we cannot overlook. We have more than 1000 citizens who died because of Hamas’s actions, we still have security threats, we still have the statements of the high-ranked Hamas leaders who are talking about the destruction of the state of Israel.

I don’t think that any responsible leader would actually disregard such facts and continue and continue with the ongoing process. And at this stage, I must say, that we are looking towards Abu Mazen, looking at his actions in the future, what he will do in the Gaza strip, will he be able to control the security situation, will he be able to stop the rockets firing into Israel, what his next step will be.

Hopefully, by the next time we will speak, Israel will be in a much greater security situation, as all of our citizens are hoping for, and then we could actually talk about peace with the Palestinians, as long as the security aspects are resolved."

And while some were concerned that Rivlin being a longtime supporter of the Jewish settlement movement and an opponent to the creation of a Palestinian state might put him at odds with the international community, Meir Litvak, a professor at the Tel-Aviv University, did not share these concerns:

"The President can hardly influence the peace talks. The President can help in creating the atmosphere, maybe. But in Israel the President has mostly ceremonial power and he is not really influential in the questions of negotiations. So, what matters, is much more what Prime Minister Netanyahu does and then the President.

He was a very popular President. At the same time, his political views, especially on the peace process were not very popular, because many Israelis feel, rightly or wrongly, this illusion from the peace talks with the Palestinians, especially the corruption of the Oslo process in the early 2000s. So, I think people distinguish between his personality, his international status and the support for a specific policy, especially that which is related to the peace process.

On the issue of peace with the Palestinians, he will probably take the opposite view. He is very much against a two-state solution, he very much believes in the idea, I would say, one state. At the same time, the new President generally supports democracy and while he was the speaker of Parliament, he was able to foil some anti-Arab legislation by the right-wing politicians, who never forgave him for this.

So, he is, I would say, a mixed personality. In some ways he is very right-wing, in other ways he is a true democrat and liberal. How he reconciles this contradiction, I don’t know. But he believes it is possible to reconcile.

On the personal level, Netanyahu doesn’t like Rivlin. In fact, Netanyahu tried to foil Rivlin's election. He tried to find other nominees, other candidates and there are rumors that he even voted against him secretly. But this goes to personal differences. It is not ideological, it is very much related to personal differences between them. And Netanyahu is probably unhappy with the election of Rivlin.

The president doesn't have much power. The president can exert sometimes moral authority, I would say, more in the questions or some domestic issues. The president, again, he can help certain atmosphere, but he doesn't have much impact on the actual conduct of policies. So, it matters much more what Netanyahu does and what he says, that what Rivlin does.

Rivlin can maybe sometimes cause – let’s say – embarrassment if he’d behave in a certain way to Netanyahu by criticizing him on the one point or another. But it doesn’t have real effect on the policy. You have to remember that Peres was the President and Netanyahu was Prime Minister, and it was Netanyahu who led the negotiations, not Peres. And eventually, Peres had very little influence on the negotiations with the Palestinians in the past years."

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала