
President Isaac Herzog was astonished by remarks made this week by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, which included the claim that “even Hitler had Jewish blood.”
In his first response to the affair, Herzog made clear that he expects Lavrov to retract his words and apologize.
“The truth is I read them several times,” he recounted on Tuesday.
- “At first, I couldn’t believe that they had been uttered by a Russian foreign minister. They made me angry and disgusted. During a week when we are remembering the Holocaust, of all weeks, the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov chooses to spread lies, terrible lies, which smell of antisemitism. I expect him to retract his words and apologize.”
While Herzog doesn’t believe that Lavrov’s remarks will harm bilateral relations, they do threaten to cast a cloud over them.
“It’s necessary and proper that he correct those remarks,” Herzog added, noting the crucial contribution of the Red Army in defeating the Nazis.
This weekend, Herzog will be marking 10 months as Citizen No. 1.
Once the chairman of the Labor Party and the left’s candidate for prime minister, today he avoids like the plague anything that smacks of a political statement: He refuses to say whether he stands by his call for Benjamin Netanyahu to retire from political life, or say how he stands on issuing pardons to disgraced public figures, and he isn’t ready to affirm support for the two-state solution.
- “Today I’m no longer a politician,” he explains. “Anything I say that has any political significance will undermine my ability to be an objective president who can reach out to all parts of the nation and tell them all, ‘You’re my sons and daughters.’”
Herzog says: “I don’t deny in any way what I said, how I acted or what I did as a Knesset member, minister, opposition leader or candidate for prime minister. But I am not a soccer referee who suddenly becomes a key striker on one of the teams.”
- “The current government, which said it was formed to rescue Israel from a protracted government crisis, today finds itself in danger of collapse. How much are you worried by this?”
“What concerns me is just one issue, an issue about which there is a consensus – the need for political stability. I don’t care where it comes from.”
“Your predecessor, President Reuven Rivlin, undertook the formation of a government that doesn’t identify politically with one side or the other. Do you see yourself assuming a similar role?”
“Everyone loves asking me hypothetical questions that by their very nature are a trap. Nothing good can come out of it. I very much hope that we won’t get to that point. President Rivlin did what he did when the political system was at the end of its tether and people were at each other’s throats, and the problem couldn’t be solved.”
Herzog recalls that his father, former president Chaim Herzog, pushed for the formation of the rotation government in 1984 in an attempt to rescue the political system from the crisis it had become mired in.
When you were head of the opposition, you said about Netanyahu that his political career was at an end because of the police investigations against him. You called on him to leave politics and expressed hope that Likud would choose another leader in his place. Are those remarks that you are ready to stand by today?
“I don’t relate to the previous chapter of my life. I am a public person. Nothing that I said I said casually. Today, I’m in another place. I have other responsibilities. I look at the entire political map and treat everyone with respect.”
Even though another round of elections now seems possible in the near future, Herzog refuses to say whether he would choose Netanyahu to form the next government.
“I told you that I dislike hypothetical questions and conversations that might restrict my future judgments.”
The question of granting a pardon to Netanyahu, if convicted, infuriates Herzog. Several months ago, he unveiled an orderly, transparent and sophisticated policy of lightening the sentences of convicted criminals. Herzog hinted then that granting pardons to a public figure was a complicated business that shouldn’t depend on presidential whims. He declared that he would be harsh towards sex offenders, domestic violence cases and those involved in traffic collisions, but he didn’t say he would take a hard line against disgraced public figures.
“You don’t think that corruption should be given special treatment? That the law applying to it is like any other?”
“I have looked at thousands of cases. So far, I haven’t received a single request from a public figure, not on the municipal level either. If I had gotten one, it would have been rejected.”
The telephone in Herzog’s office was working overtime this week: The president spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, King Abdullah of Jordan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well as the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Offering his Eid al-Fitr greetings is a symbolic gesture, but the communications also testify to the status Herzog has been accorded by the region’s leaders. Since he entered office, and against the background of government instability in Israel, Herzog has emerged as a significant diplomatic figure.
Last March, after a lengthy period of feelers, Herzog set out for Turkey as a giant first step toward repairing bilateral relations. Erdogan had courted Herzog for months beforehand – time after time declaring publicly his desire to host the Israeli president, time after time troubling to telephone him. A Turkish official explained back then that Herzog was seen as the “responsible adult” and someone who could lead a process of reconciliation.
When they finally met at the presidential palace in Ankara, Erdogan took pains to play the host. Aware of the tensions of the past, Herzog sounded a more somber note. “The process is moving forward step by step. Even conversations with Erdogan,” Herzog says. “We put everything on the table, including the presence of Hamas figures in Turkey, which is a stumbling block to much more active and consequential relations. We are taking measured steps. If we see results, we hope that there will soon be meetings on a ministerial level. That’s a decision to be taken by the government.”
Bennett and Lapid have said that the government they formed will not pursue a political process with the Palestinian Authority. While Herzog is maintaining polite telephone contact with Mahmoud Abbas, he points out that it doesn’t involve any meaningful political dialogue.
“I don’t talk to the Palestinian leadership, except on a formal basis. I spoke with Abu Mazen [Abbas] during the holiday. He called me when my mother died to offer his condolences. I am not conducting a dialogue on an operative basis with the Palestinian leadership because that’s not my job.”
- Afterwards, he adds: “The president has no executive authority. I have nothing to give. I can’t talk about concessions of one kind or another or about a plan for a permanent settlement.
Will you meet with Abbas?
“I don’t reject the possibility of a meeting with Abbas, but this is something that must be done properly,” he says, adding: “You can’t create expectations that afterwards lead to disappointment. Ultimately, you need to understand what will be happening the day after. Will he in the meantime continue to pursue his war against Israel in international legal tribunals?”
Herzog doesn’t spare the Palestinian side from criticism and responsibility for the lack of diplomatic progress. “We must maintain a dialogue with the Palestinians,” he says. “But it’s impossible to deny the constraints there are to this relationship. We can’t ignore the split on the Palestinian side. We can’t overlook the fact that Gaza is an Iranian launch pad for rocket attacks. We can’t overlook the paralysis that has gripped Palestinian politics or the fact that the Palestinians are acting against us in various forums that are in violation of the spirit of cooperation and making peace.”
In recent weeks, the president has worked behind the scenes in an attempt to lower the flames around the Temple Mount and include regional leaders in discussions about it. “I am very much aware of the sensitivities concerning the Temple Mount and have been dealing with it a great deal in an attempt to bring calm, through dialogue with many of those involved,” he reveals. “I conducted a fact check and can say authoritatively: Israel didn’t permit anyone to make a sacrifice on the Temple Mount. Period. Any claim to the contrary is a lie.”
A few minutes after the start of the interview, Herzog suddenly rose from his desk, walked over to a nearby bookcase and took down a framed picture. The photo shows Lina, an Israeli Arab nurse, administering a third coronavirus vaccine to him. “The entire world saw this picture,” he says. “We need to enable every person, no matter what his background or community, to feel that they can realize their potential in our country.”
Herzog goes on to laud the inclusion of an Arab party in the government coalition, but adds that this doesn’t imply his political support for the government, MK Mansour Abbas or the United Arab List. “I think that Abbas is a phenomenon that has arrived just in time and is a welcome one,” he says. “This is something that has emerged from the bedrock of Arab society in Israel, which wants to integrate and be part of the fabric of life.”
Herzog reveals that when he was vying for the job of prime minister in 2015, he tried to recruit the heads of the four Arab parties of the time to join his coalition. “In the end, they said, ‘The time isn’t yet ripe.’ There were those who said, ‘First make an agreement with the Palestinians’ and those who rejected the idea out of hand.”
Herzog asks that the interview end with a holiday greeting: “I wish on this Independence Day that we try for a brief moment to stop being overly critical, be less cynical and appreciate what we have: our life,” he says. “Crises have shown us how important it is to see our situation in proportion. I am a great believer in the people of Israel striving in every possible way to ensure that Israel in its centennial year will be at the height of its glory. It isn’t easy. We face big challenges. We need to be strong enough and moral enough as a nation to face these challenges. I wish everyone good health and family and national resilience that will allow us next year to celebrate together our 75th year and to look forward to our centennial year.”
Source: Jonathan Lis – HAARETZ
Header: President Issac Herzog receiving his third dose of the Coronavirus vaccine in July.Credit: Jonathan Zindel / Flash 90