"The truth is that I did not believe that this government would last even a year," says former President Reuven (Ruby) Rivlin, in the first interview since ending his term in July 2021 and leaving the presidential residence in Jerusalem.
At the end of his seven years in office, the 10th president imposed a media silence on himself, but agreed to give a special interview to the writer of these lines, who served as a reporter in the Knesset for 31 years, including 14 years in "Israel Today."
The full interview is presented in the new book "Rubbing" which will be published next week and parts of which will be published in the upcoming supplement of "Israel this week".
"Just thinking about how to get re-elected."
Knesset Plenum, Archive, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
"Bennett and Lapid had no choice," Rivlin said last week.
Are you concerned about the deterioration that has taken place over the past year in the level of discourse in the Knesset?
"Very. The discourse in the Knesset has always been political, but the problem is that today, unlike in the past, the public leaders who are supposed to be the leaders are not fulfilling their role. They do not know where to go, but want to ask the elected public. To be re-elected so he wants to hear what the voters want, turn the face of the generation before the dog - and this is what our leaders look like.
"In the past, public leaders did not take the words of people with extremist views seriously. When the leader of the movement, Rabbi Meir Kahana, was elected to the Knesset, Menachem Begin said that if he had to get his support to become prime minister, he would resign.
"I mean, the principle then prevailed over the political need. The leaders in those years, Ben-Gurion and Begin, although they quarreled and insulted each other, wanted the good of the state. Today public leaders do not think about the state but how they will be elected again.
"Once, people who have the ability to contribute to society were elected to the Knesset. Today, Knesset members take their political opponents bluntly, because they believe that the public will only appreciate them if they speak out strongly and point to their opponents as traitors.
"Public leaders, unfortunately, instead of pointing to achievements they have not been able to achieve, point to the failure of their opponents. As a result, the Knesset loses the people's trust because it cannot make decisions. In this way the deterioration deepens to the point of endangering democracy."
In your view, the Israel of 2022 is suffering from a leadership crisis?
"Certainly. Many in the public say 'if the state does not interest the leaders - why would they interest me?'. "Like former chief of staff Gadi Izenkot, they could contribute their ability and experience to politics, as many chiefs of staff like Moshe (Boogie) Ya'alon, Gabi Ashkenazi and Bnei Gantz did at the time."
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