World

Isaac Herzog: Israel’s 11th President, Ambition Fulfilled, Plan in Hand

July 6, 2021
Bharat Times English News

At around 4.30 pm on Wednesday, at a Knesset ceremony, Isaac Herzog will be sworn in as the eleventh President of the State of Israel, in place of Reuven Rivlin.

He will later attend another ceremony at the presidential residence, where Rivlin will welcome him as Israel’s number one citizen, before the outgoing president returns to live a normal lifestyle.

Future historians may record:

On the seventh day of the seventh month at 7 o’clock in the evening, Isaac Herzog, former chairman of the Jewish Agency, formally took up his seven-year term as President of the State of Israel.

Herzog is the third native-born Israeli to hold this position and the first to be born after the establishment of the state.

The 73-year-old state’s 11th president, he is the country’s first direct second-generation president, and the second to emerge from a Jewish agency. The first was Israel’s first president, Chaim Weisman, whose nephew Ezer Weisman was Israel’s seventh president, and was indirectly responsible for the presidency, which was five years longer with the option of a second term of five years, a single seven-year. Period.

Herzog’s late father, Chaim Herzog, who was Israel’s sixth president, was the last president to serve two full five-year terms. Weisman was on track to do the same, but the discovery of a fiscal misconduct ended his second term.

Israel’s second president, Yitzhak Ben Zvi, also served two full five-year terms and was elected to a third term, but died four months later.

After his demise, a limit was placed on the length of time one could serve as President. Israel’s third president, Zalman Shazar, also served two full five-year terms, but the fourth and fifth presidents, Ephraim Katzir and Yitzhak Navon, served only one five-year term each. Katzir returned to the Weizmann Institute to resume his scientific research, and Navon returned to politics and became Minister of Education. Israel’s eighth president, Moshe Katsav, was the first person to be sentenced to prison for sexual misconduct. After his release, he has led a quiet life in his garden. Shimon Peres, who was a month away from his eighty-fourth birthday when he became Israel’s ninth president, was the oldest person to serve as Israel’s number one citizen, and the only person to have served as the first prime minister. Were.

Reuven Rivlin, who completed his term as Israel’s 10th President after Herzog was sworn into the Knesset, has a long history of public service in various roles.

When officially announcing his candidacy, it had long been known that Herzog’s major personal ambition was to become President of the State of Israel.

He is young enough to return to politics or any other form of public service after completing his term.

He is a former chairman of the Labor Party, as was Shimon Peres.

Although the president is considered apolitical, every president of Israel, apart from Chaim Weisman and Ephraim Katzir, has been a former member of the Knesset, and Weisman certainly politicized that effort in an attempt to secure what came to be known as the Balfour Declaration. Known in which His Majesty’s government favored the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

For nearly four decades, the left and the right have alternated better for the presidency than the governments of Israel, which have long been right-wing.

Rivlin was a lifelong follower of Jabotinsky and a Likudnik; Perez had been Labor Prime Minister; Katzav was a Likud minister and a Knesset member, as was Ezer Weisman. But before that, the second to sixth presidents had been identified with the Left.

Nonetheless, he learned to respect the importance of acknowledging the other and to respect the right-wing heroes of a significant part of the nation.

Herzog would be doing the same.

His first official duty would be to speak at a memorial ceremony for Jabotinsky.

But, INASMUCH as much as possible, he will spend the first week or two of his term getting to know the ropes of his new position, familiarizing himself with the names and faces of staff members and what they do, congratulating messages from the world. will answer. Message to leaders, and world leaders, about the threats posed by a nuclear Iran and any other object of national importance to Israel.

As far as staff is concerned, the morning after moving into the president’s residence, Herzog will host a half-day staff seminar to help newcomers who are still in the process of transitioning, as well as members of the permanent staff, some including are about to serve their fourth president, will get to know each other.

Once he is involved in the day-to-day workings of the Presidency, that will happen very soon, Herzog pointed out. Jerusalem Post That his priorities will be related to repairing the rifts in the nation, protecting Israel’s good name, fighting Israel’s illegalization and enhancing the positive spirit of Israel.

Like his father and Rivlin, Herzog is a lawyer by profession. So does his wife, Michal, who has been Israel Director of the Maurice and Vivienne Vohl Philanthropic Foundation for the past 13 years. There is nothing in the law to stop her from continuing her work, but she expects that as the wife of the president she will have to perform so many duties that she will not be able to fulfill her role as director. She wants. . But the people behind the Wohl Foundation are reluctant to let him go and are looking for ways to help him do whatever he needs to as both the president’s spouse and director of a charitable foundation.

Herzogs has three eldest sons who will not be staying with him in Jerusalem. The only president whose children lived in the residence was Yitzhak Navon, whose children, Nama and Erez, sometimes did mischievous acts – much to the delight of the guests, who were pleased to see a natural family atmosphere in the number one citizen’s building.

The President of Israel is elected by the Knesset.

Herzog’s resounding victory, in which he garnered more votes than his predecessors, was due to his ability to make friends and influence people across the political spectrum.

Initially, it looked like Herzog would walk into the office of president too easily.

But few politicians in Israel – past or present – may avoid controversy. In Herzog’s case, it’s his election of spokesperson. The last person in the world that anyone on the left would expect Herzog to elect is Naor Ihiya, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud’s spokesman.

Ihiya, 32, was his mentor’s voice for two years and was responsible for some of the most vicious diatribes against the media, the justice system and Netanyahu’s political rivals.

The appointment can cost the public Herzog Brownie Points, or it can generally be felt that a true professional spokesperson is like a weather vane and changes according to the way the wind blows.

Herzog, who has been a cabinet secretary, MK, minister and opposition leader, comes to his new post with a heavy load of responsibility – not only because of the turn of events in Israel, the region and the Jewish world, but also because of the way they come. He is from a family of leaders. His grandfather, for whom he is named, was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the State of Israel and author of the Official Prayer for the State of Israel. His father was a high-ranking military officer before becoming president and then Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. His maternal grandmother was the founder and president of Vishwa Imuna.
At a farewell ceremony given to him by the Jewish Agency this week, part of a letter asked by Herzog Makar Rishon The writing to his grandfather on the occasion of Israel’s 70th anniversary was read aloud by Yehuda Seton, COO and Chief Program Officer of the Jewish Agency. In it, Herzog wrote about his pride in being led by his grandfather, and his regret that he had never known him personally, but declared that his grandfather’s spirit hovered over him at all times. lives, because not a day goes by that they do not receive a memento of their grandfather’s hallucinatory decisions, his scientific research, a letter he wrote, or a newspaper clipping. For all that, he follows a different path than his grandfather, he wrote, because different generations have different interests, and because times change. Herzog has also written and spoken extensively about his father. When asked whether he would emulate his father’s presidency, he noted what he had written to his grandfather about his way, and said: “I appreciate my father, but his plan It was and I plan.”

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