President Herzog’s grand entrance
It wasn’t surprising when Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy asserted on Wednesday that Israel’s societal discord was worse than the Iranian threat. Nor was the fact that he made the claim during the swearing-in ceremony of Isaac Herzog as the country’s 11th president.
It has become par for the so-called “Center-Left” to bemoan the condition of the country in this fashion. Invoking the terrorist regime in Tehran when talking about internal strife in the Jewish state that it vows to wipe off the map has a twofold purpose.
One is to accuse the Right, led by former prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, of causing the political rift that’s supposedly chipping away at Israeli democracy. The other is to minimize the real and present danger posed by the Islamic Republic and its proxies – or at least to imply that Netanyahu has been exaggerating it for decades in order to keep himself in power.
During most of his seven-year tenure as president, Reuven Rivlin honed the art of expressing this view through the use of flowery language to issue heartfelt warnings about the soul of the nation.
It’s a neat trick to admonish the public, while simultaneously professing to love and serve all of its sectors, regardless of political affiliation or ethnic background. It’s the president’s job, after all, to remain above the fray that besets Knesset debates and committee meetings. And Rivlin pretended to perform with aplomb this almost impossible feat in a country filled with a “stiffnecked people,” about whom it is quipped, “Two Jews, three opinions.”
But he hasn’t always been delicate when voicing his criticism. At the opening of the Knesset’s winter session in October, for instance, he announced, “It appears to me as if we have lost the moral compass that was with us from the state’s independence until today – the compass of fundamental principles and values that we are committed to uphold.”
Though cries of “speak for yourself” would have been in order, the parliamentarians at whom his words were directed rolled their eyes. Rivlin never made a secret of his antipathy toward Netanyahu, despite the fact that both were raised on the ideology of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionist Zionism movement.
Indeed, “Ruvi,” as he is familiarly called, treated Bibi abysmally. It was thus that Netanyahu and his supporters watched Rivlin’s term come to an end with a sigh of relief.
Yet Rivlin’s shift away from Likud and its politics was only part of the problem. More disconcerting was his tendency to wink, nod and pander to the Left, both in Israel and abroad.
Take, for one example among many, his joint commemoration of the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht – the Nazi pogrom against Germany’s Jews on November 9-10, 1938 – with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen. In itself, the event wouldn’t have been cause for pause.
On the contrary, if the point of the “global memorial,” held via Zoom due to the coronavirus pandemic, had been to emphasize and condemn antisemitism, it would have been appropriate.
Instead, however, the president of the Jewish state took part in a video that obfuscated the particularity of the “Night of Broken Glass” that he and his German-speaking counterparts were marking.
“We will stand against hatred,” said Rivlin, Steinmeier and Van der Bellen, each in turn. “We will stand against racism, against antisemitism. We will stand together in Vienna, in Jerusalem, in Berlin. Never again means never again. Let there be light.”
As I pointed out while the happening was being livestreamed from the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, it was bad enough for “hatred” and “racism” to be invoked at all in the context of the 48-hour killing spree against innocent Jews. But placing the buzzwords enlisted by progressives who accuse Jews of enjoying “white privilege” ahead of the actual culprit was a disgrace.
CONTRARY TO Rivlin, Herzog is a full-fledged Laborite who even headed the party from which he hails. Nevertheless, perhaps ironically, Netanyahu backed his appointment with gusto. Whether this is why “Bougie,” as the new president is nicknamed, has appointed former Netanyahu spokesperson Naor Ihia to serve in that capacity for him in his new role is unclear.
What has been established, though, is that the Left is miffed by the move – so much so that activists staged protests against it outside the Knesset during Herzog’s inauguration. I guess they hadn’t heard the outgoing president’s repeated calls for “civil discourse” and “unity.” Or, more likely, they understood that such urging was reserved for Netanyahu’s champions, not the masses chanting “crime minister” outside of his home every weekend and disturbing the peace.
In spite of the unpleasant incident surrounding Ihia’s appointment, Herzog was received warmly and with great fanfare by the Knesset. Even cynics like myself were touched by the festive atmosphere, one that’s rarely on display in Israel’s parliament, especially these days.
Still, I wasn’t looking forward to what I assumed would be a platitude-filled speech about the need to “heal rifts.” I certainly didn’t feel like hearing a lecture about my imperiled soul.
To my astonishment, Herzog took a different tack. Though he couldn’t avoid mentioning the “unprecedented political crisis” that sent Israelis to the ballot box four times in two years, and paying what has become obligatory lip service to the “challenge of climate change,” he delivered an uplifting message.
Rather than reprimands, he offered alternatives, asking everyone to “lower the tone.”
Never mind that requesting this of Israelis is a virtually futile endeavor in the best of times; there was something in his approach that came across as more sincere than condescending.
Of particular note was his reference to external efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. Thankfully, he neither generalized antisemitism nor played down Iranian nukes.
Then there was his welcome tribute to Netanyahu and the others who are not part of the governing coalition.
“There is no democracy without opposition,” he said. “Political realities called me to serve in the position you are now in a number of times. This time, it has fallen on your shoulders. I am confident that you will fulfill your service to the people from the opposition in a statesmanlike, responsible and relevant manner.”
It’s been a long time since my eyes welled up from a ceremony, and even then, it was because I was witnessing my children embarking on or completing their army service. If I happened to be on the verge of tears last month when the members of the new government took their oath of office, it was out of despair.
Unlike many of my fellow disgruntled voters, however, I wasn’t eulogizing Israeli democracy or frightened for the country’s future. No, my upset was over the pointless exercise of forming a coalition that has no chance of success, simply in order to get “Bibi out of Balfour” and stave off what is in any case an inevitable fifth round of elections. Though the former mission was accomplished – outrageously, by members of the now-former prime minister’s ideological camp – the latter is still looming.
So, it was refreshing to feel the doom and gloom of the hour lift at the sight of Herzog placing his hand on the same Bible that his father used 38 years ago to take the oath of the presidency. To add schmaltz to sentimentality, the singing of “Hatikvah” that signaled the end of the proceedings opened my flood gates.
By Thursday morning, things were back to abnormal in a way that no new blood at the President’s Residence could possibly alter. The good news is that if all Herzog does at this juncture is refrain from taking sides on the ideological and political battlefield, his contribution to “unity” will far outweigh that of his predecessor.