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Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO
President's Residence. Newly elected president will have to bring along detergents
Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO
Eitan Haber

The sad story of Israel's presidential race

Op-ed: New president will be measured by number of houses he has; experience, wisdom and discretion are apparently no longer important.

1. Congratulations: We must congratulate the elected president: Congratulations! May the Lord bless you and keep you safe, may the Lord's face shine upon you and guide you, may the Lord lift his face unto you and give you peace.

 

 

2. The house index: In the past two days we learned that the next president will be measured, mainly, according to the number of houses and apartments he and his family have. This time, the winner in the Knesset – and likely also in the public opinion – will be the person with fewer houses and apartments. A person's experience in life, his wisdom and discretion are apparently no longer important. It's more important to know the number of square meters and the color of the toilet bowl in the house. Perhaps this is the appropriate thing for the Jewish state.

 

3. Detergents: It's important that the elected president will bring not only life's experience, wisdom and good will to the President's Residence, but also detergents. This is the first time that a new president will have to force his way through piles of filth left over from the election campaign.

 

4. Two for the price of one: The new president must walk hand in hand with the prime minister, and together they must try to be a winning couple in power. But in the Jewish state, the new president barely has a chance to do that. The prime minister usually envies the president's popularity, and the president is convinced that the prime minister is doing everything in his power to make him fail. And so what happens is that in most cases the events taking place in the State of Israel get "two for the price of one": Both the president and the prime minister refuse to give in to each other, and the water in the level of suspicion reaches their offices' ceilings, and both the president and the prime minister drown in it.

 

5. Two unknowns: What do the Knesset members voting for a president on Tuesday know about Dan Shechtman, apart from the fact that he is a Nobel Prize laureate? What do they know about Dalia Dorner, apart from the fact that she was a Supreme Court judge? Behind the screen, almost every Knesset member makes his own personal and factional calculations. Who's against who, how to drive the prime minister crazy, what's good for me, for my career. What’s in the State of Israel's best interest? Don’t make me laugh.

 

6. The next, next president: There is no need to fear the election of the 11th president. In seven years from now, no one will remember or want to be reminded of the sad story of the current president's election, and there is not a chance in the world that the Knesset members will give up on the great right to elect the No. 1 citizen. The proposal that the entire state will elect the president is ridiculous. The candidates will have to spend tens of millions of shekels on a dirty election campaign, and the state will have to spend a similar amount for us to be able to elect the holder of the position which Chaim Weizmann once described as follows: "As president, the only thing I'm allowed to stick my nose into is a handkerchief."

 


פרסום ראשון: 06.10.14, 12:46
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