Israel’s former president has told the JC that hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza must be brought back home, whatever the cost.
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview, Reuven Rivlin said the hostages were “the responsibility of all the people of Israel, and more than 80 per cent of the citizens of Israel believe that it is a must for us to get to any kind of solution by bringing back … all those will who remain alive and are still in the hands of Hamas”.
The tenth president of the Jewish state noted that it was the “same government, almost” – led by Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud party Rivlin was a member of — that secured the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from more than five years of Hamas captivity. “They brought him back for 1027 people – including murderers”, Rivlin said.
Although he was under no illusions as to the difficulty of negotiating with the terrorist group, he said: “We know also that every compromise that they will agree to, and we will agree to, they will, at the end of the day, will break and will not fulfil. But we've to do everything.”
The lack of acknowledgement of the true nature of the terrorist threat faced by Israel, is something of a source of frustration for Rivlin: “I go from place to place to let people understand that Hezbollah and Hamas people are not freedom fighters. They are terrorists, terrible terrorists … they are people who really believe in an Islamic state.”
Similarly exasperating is the refusal of many to acknowledge the groups’ eliminationist nature: “Unfortunately, people don't understand now, even all over Europe – not to mention all our surrounding countries – that when we talk about never again, never is now. Those people don't want two states for two people…they want to destroy Israel.”
Israel’s former president hit out at the inadequacies in preventing conflict of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which he said had been imposed on Israel following the 2006 war with Hezbollah.
“Lebanon has to understand if the Hezbollah are sending rockets into Israel, then the government of Lebanon is responsible for that”, he said, adding: “We are restraining ourselves in order to please our friends, real friends, great friends, Americans, Nato, Great Britain and they have to understand things cannot go on.”
Despite the bleak regional outlook, Rivlin, who in office made large efforts to reach out to Israel’s Arab population, including taking part in a ceremony commemorating the Kfar Qassem massacre – where in 1956 Israeli forces killed 49 Arab men, women and children – still believed in a shared future between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.
Israel's then President Reuven Rivlin greets an Arab-Israeli man during a memorial ceremony ten years ago for the 47 Arab Israelis killed in the town Kfar Qassem by Israeli border policemen on October 29, 1956 (Photo: Getty Images)
Rivlin’s willingness to speak up against Jewish terrorism has also seen him targeted by the far-right and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair.
“Arabs and Israelis” he said, “are not doomed to live together. We are destined to live together. It is our destiny. We have no other choice.”
Reuven Rivlin attending an "Iftar" meal a day's fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Abu Ghosh, near Jerusalem 2021. The banquet was also attended by Egyptian, Jordanian and UAE ambassadors (photo: Getty Images)
He continued: “The Promised Land was given to Abraham, the father of Ishmael and Isaac. The father of the children of Israel and the children of Islam. He gave them the idea that we have to live together because they were brothers … They have to understand that we came to the land of Israel, because we have no other place to be, and we are ready to live along with them … as long as they will forget that they hate us.”
Rivlin drew on his own family history as an example of shared living; his family arrived in Jerusalem in 1809 or תק"ע in the Hebrew calendar, thinking that the date (which spells out blow in Hebrew) had a divine significance and letting “the great shofar blow”.
He explained: “In 1809, we came to welcome the Messiah … my great, great, great grandfather said ‘The Messiah is coming to Jerusalem, how come we, the Rivlin family, will not welcome him?’”
He went on: “Our best friends were people from the Arab side, whether they were Christian or Muslims, they were friends.”
Even in his own lifetime he can draw on real life familial examples of coexistence: his father, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, translated the Quran into Hebrew and in 1942 was promised protection by Arab neighbours should the Nazis be victorious against the Allies in the battle of El-Alamein.
Although, according to Rivlin, “my father laughed and said to them, ‘Listen, Montgomery will win the battle.’”
A keen anglophile, the former president was keen to reel off the names of Premier League football teams he’s excited that he can see on his television at just the click of a button.
Prince William presenting Mr Rivlin with a Liverpool FC shirt on his visit to Israel in 2018
He has met King Charles more than presidents Obama and Biden — “God bless him”, Rivlin said.
In December, Israel’s former president is set to visit the UK for a Technion UK event, which he said he was “very honoured” to do.
As a “high-tech nation”, Rivlin said the country was “very proud” of the Technion’s scientific achievements.
Israeli innovations are something helping the country forge new global partnerships: “we are really bringing our knowledge all over the world, especially in the far East. We are in India, we are in Vietnam … even in Europe,” said Rivlin.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jerusalem in 2017 (photo: Getty Images)
He saw this in action while in office. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said to him that co-operation between the two countries would send a significant message: “Mr President Rivlin, I really would like to tell you that we together, if we will co-operate, the people of India and the people of Israel, we can save the world”.
To which, joking, Rivlin replied, “Obviously, we are all together, almost one and a half billion people, we are 10 million, and you are the rest.”
Although the joke was well received, Modi reportedly insisted that “from the point of view of knowledge, we are partners.”
