The first one-state president

Reuven Rivlin, Israel's newly-anointed President, likes to talk about his family and, in particular, about his late father, Professor Yossef Yoel Rivlin, a scholar of Semitic languages and the first person to translate the Koran into Hebrew. Living in Jerusalem under the British Mandate, Prof. Rivlin had many Palestinian friends. In 1942, sitting on a veranda in Bethlehem with one of them, they talked about the advance of Nazi forces into the Egyptian desert.

“Soon the Germans will win the war, the British will leave Palestine,” predicted his Palestinian friend, “But have no fear: We Palestinians will defend the Rivlin family.”  His father - according to Reuven Rivlin - was quick to shoot back: “The British will win the war and a Jewish state will be established”, he told his Palestinian friend. “But you can count on us: We, the Rivlin family, will defend the Palestinians.”

When this alleged conversation took place in the summer of 1942, Reuven Rivlin was three years old. But its vivid details remained imprinted in Rivlin’s mind; as if this story, more than an anecdote, were a legacy left by his father, almost a commandment. So when Rivlin said after his election that "Jews and Arabs are not doomed to live together, they are destined to live together," he is not talking politics. He speaks from the bottom of his heart.

In view of the current shift to the right in Israel, rising anti-Arab sentiment and legislation, and the recent flood of racist comments against Arabs in social media, it might come as a surprise that a politician holding such views was able to be elected President. The fact that Rivlin was and has always been a Likud member and that he got his votes mainly from right-wing members of the Knesset (the Israeli President is elected by the Knesset) makes it even more puzzling.

Yet, besides his particular family legacy, Rivlin's political career is not so exceptional. He was one of the so-called "princes" of the Likud party; sons and daughters of the founders the Revisionist party, the right-wing opponent of the socialist-leaning parties in the Zionist movement. Ex-Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, current Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, ex-Intelligence Minister, Dan Meridor and to a certain extent even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - were all members of this group which for many years dominated the Likud party.

The "father" of the Revisionist party was Ze'ev (Vladimir) Zabotinsky, a Russian-born Jewish writer and politician (1880-1940.) His most known and influential work is "The Iron Wall," in which he called the Zionists to achieve a Jewish majority in Palestine by use of force. He asserted that an "Iron Wall" around the future Jewish state was needed, as the local Palestinians and the Arabs in general would never accept Jewish sovereignty over Palestine. All efforts to win their consent, as did mainstream Zionism at the time, was futile, according to Zabotinsky. No wonder he serves as model for Israeli militarism up until now.

But contrary to the current dominant thinking in Israel, Zabotinsky was a profound democrat. Dr. Dimitry Shumsky, an expert in Jewish history from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, explains that according to Zabotinsky's vision, after the Arabs reconciled with the existence of Jewish sovereignty over Palestine, the future Jewish state would be made into a multi-national state - with Arabic as an official language beside Hebrew, and where every ethnic minority would have its own autonomy, parliament, executive branch and even tax collecting ability. A true liberal, according to Shumsky.

Menahem Begin, who came to power in 1977 as Israel's first right-wing prime minister, was a true heir of Zabotinsky's philosophy. A staunch supporter of Jewish nationalism or even chauvinism on the one hand, and a fervent legalist on the other. Yet over the years not much remained from Jabotinsky's democratic and liberal legacy. Those supporting it were shoved aside or left the Likud altogether. Rivlin, who never posed a threat to the Likud leadership, somehow stayed behind. To some extent, he is the exception proving the rule. 

But while Jabotinsky was Eurocentric and had very little interest in the local Arab culture, Rivlin is more "romantic" about Arab-Jewish relations, maybe due to his family history. Therefore, he didn't see any contradiction between his deep belief in  Greater Eretz Israel and his opposition to any Israeli withdrawal from it and his conviction that Arabs citizens should enjoy full political and cultural rights. Rivlin, may be more than any prominent Israeli politician, is a true believer in the one-state solution - provided that this would be a Jewish state.

His credentials as an opponent of the Oslo peace process helped him to get the right-wing votes needed to be elected president. But his beliefs in civil rights for Palestinians - in Israel and in the West Bank - earned him nasty attacks from right-wing extremists now that he is already in office. During Operation Protective Edge, he was among the few who condemned the incitement against Israeli Palestinians. He sided with an Arab-Jewish young couple who decided to marry, despite racist propaganda against them. And just a week ago, he became the first Israeli President to participate in the annual commemoration of the massacre in Kfar Kassem, where 43 Palestinian villagers were killed by Israeli border police in 1956.

Not all Arabs in Israel were happy with Rivlin's participation in the ceremony as he did not apologise for the massacre but just described it as a "criminal killings." But it certainly represents a change. Suhayl Karam, the owner of the most popular Arabic radio station, Radio Shams, wrote last week in Haaretz that in Rivlin the Arabs in Israel, "have a president at last." Less than ninety days into his presidency, Rivlin turned from a right-wing annexationist to the darling of the left.

Rivlin is obviously compared to his precedent, Shimon Peres. This comparison is a little misleading. Peres was Israel's most senior statesman, totally committed to the peace process and during his seven years in office, he served sometimes as shadow foreign minister. Rivlin was never a statesman, and probably has no clear practical plan how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Rivlin is much more interested in healing Israeli society than offering a peace agreement. If Peres was president for foreign affairs, Rivlin seems like a president for internal affairs. But when negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians are turning into a distant memory and the two state solution, so identified with Peres, is losing ground by the day, Rivlin's emphasis on civil rights may prove a refreshing renovation.

Rivlin might not be the founder of the one democratic state in Eretz Israel/Palestine, and it is doubtful if he has the will or the ability to lead Israeli society in this direction. But he might help Israelis to understand that their first imperative should be to acknowledge the right of Palestinians to live beside them, to live in equality. In short, to live. This might be a greater achievement than Peres ever did.           

Meron Rapoport is an Israeli journalist and writer, winner of the Napoli International Prize for Journalism for a inquiry about the stealing of olive trees from their Palestinian owners. He is ex-head of the News Department in Haaertz, and now an independent journalist.