The president of Israel: More than just a ceremonial figure - comment

On May 16, 1948, just two days after the establishment of the State of Israel, the Provisional State Council elected Dr. Chaim Weizmann as the country’s first president. Weizmann had been the long-standing president of the World Zionist Organization, and electing him as head of state was in a sense a continuation of his role in another format.

Essentially, the president was an apolitical figurehead, a symbol of national unity with access to every sphere of government and national security, but with minimal influence.

Weizmann frequently complained that the only thing in which he could poke his nose was his handkerchief.

Yet for all that, every president of Israel was confronted with some kind of national crisis or controversy in which he had to play a role that was not exactly symbolic.

Question raised: Does Israel need a president?

From time to time, especially during periods of economic austerity, the question is raised as to whether Israel really needs a president.

The question was raised again in June 2021, during the presidential race between Isaac Herzog and Israel Prize laureate Miriam Peretz.

Herzog won by a landslide.

Though Peretz was and is enormously popular, she simply didn’t have the background. Herzog, the grandson of a chief rabbi and the son and nephew of statesmen, diplomats, and politicians who is himself a former minister and member of Knesset, grew up meeting all strata of society, and carried such contacts into his adult life.

He was born and raised with the right qualifications.

Because he is naturally polite and considerate, and makes a point of learning the background and histories of people whom he meets, be they kibbutzniks, hospital directors, senior army officers, or heads of diplomatic missions, and is genuinely curious about them and what they do, Herzog has earned considerable respect and is generally well-liked by most people with the possible exception of those who lean to the radical Right, and see him only as a past chairman of the Labor Party.

Just before the presidential elections of July 2021, as someone who has met and written about every president since Ephraim Katzir, I was assigned to write an article about whether Israel really needs a president.

At the time, I wrote: “The president is somehow regarded as the father of the nation in a way that the prime minister, regardless of which party he or she might represent, could not be.

“Most people need a parent figure of some kind, which is why Queen Elizabeth remained so popular in Britain, and why organizations and institutions make every effort to have their milestone events celebrated at the President’s Residence, or at the very least have the president grace their functions.

“To Jewish communities abroad, the president of Israel is the closest thing to royalty.... Since Israel no longer has a monarch, the president is the next best thing.”

It was obvious from the very beginning that Herzog intended to expand presidential influence. There is no doubt that he succeeded. This is partly due to his own personality and tenacity, and partly to force of circumstance.

Every president is a quasi-diplomat in that when traveling abroad on state visits, he meets the head of state, the prime minister, the opposition leader, the speaker of the parliament, and other dignitaries to whom he conveys whatever messages Israel’s prime minister and foreign minister deem to be most important.

He is credited with overcoming the freeze in diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey, and initiating an active channel of communication with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which has unfortunately deteriorated as a result of Erdogan’s outrageous support of Hamas and castigation of Israel.

On the home front, Herzog receives the credentials of foreign ambassadors, and signs the appointments of Israeli ambassadors going abroad. In both cases, he conducts conversations about bilateral relations.

He also signs the appointments of judges and other high-ranking civil servants, meets regularly with the prime minister and the heads of Israel’s security network, with academics, industrialists, local authority leaders, biblical scholars, and more.

With the outbreak of the pandemic, he was among the first to be inoculated, thereby serving as an example to the nation.

He is a consistent champion of efforts to combat climate change.

During the controversy over judicial reform, he did everything in his power to promote civilized dialogue between the different parties in the hope that they would reach a consensus, and made the President’s Residence available for dialogue on neutral ground.

He invited the families of hostages in Hamas captivity to come and speak to him and promised to do whatever he could to help.

He went to Kibbutz Be’eri and other places of devastation.

He met with survivors and displaced persons, as well as with combat and civilian paramedics.

Since the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Herzog has met numerous world leaders who have come to Israel to demonstrate their solidarity and to express their condolences over the heinous loss of life. He has spoken to many more leaders, including King Charles III, who have telephoned to offer their condolences.

President Herzog has visited almost every hospital in which wounded soldiers and civilians are being treated; and he has been to army bases to offer his thanks and his encouragement.

He has also been to Arab villages and last week went to Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in the country. Both the recognized and unrecognized Bedouin towns and cities have little or no shelter.

Their populations are entirely vulnerable to rockets from Gaza.

Several Bedouin folks risked their own lives to save people from the Hamas bloodbath, and some lost their own lives.

While meeting with Bedouin community leaders, Herzog said: “We came to say that we share deeply in the grief of the entire Arab population and the Bedouin society in particular. Beloved sons of the Bedouin community were murdered, innocent people were slaughtered, and people who had done no wrong – people at work, on the road, and in their homes were slaughtered just like the Jewish victims.”

Speaking from Rahat to the world at large, Herzog emphasized: “This is not a war between Jews and Muslims. This is a war between the people who seek to bring light and the people who seek to bring darkness.”

The presidency: a ceremonial role?

Far from it.

Herzog has proved that Israel really does need a president.