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Israeli left's baffling support for Rivlin

If former Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin is elected president with support from the Meretz and Labor parties, it will reveal the bankruptcy of Israel's left.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) stands with President Shimon Peres and Speaker of the parliament Reuven Rivlin (R) during a memorial ceremony on Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem marking the anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin October 20, 2010. Israel marks on Wednesday the 15th anniversary of Rabin's assassination by an ultra-nationalist Jew.  REUTERS/Alex Kolomoisky/Pool (JERUSALEM - Tags: POLITICS ANNIVERSARY) - RTXTN9O
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If the Knesset elects Reuven “Ruby” Rivlin as Israel’s president on June 10, he will be the right man at the right time. There is no one more fitting than Rivlin to represent the Greater Land of Israel, the land of the settlers and of self-isolation. There is no time more fitting than this period of diplomatic drought and flood of settlements to bestow Israel's most stately and esteemed role on the person who proclaimed the following on the occasion of the 2012 Independence Day ceremony: “Even in our 64th year of independence, we remember that we were a generation of settlers — and continue to be a generation of settlers.”

Former Knesset Speaker Rivlin is the true face of Israel 2014. He is devoid of pretense, unlike Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in his landmark Bar-Ilan speech spoke of a two-state solution but has since spared no obstacle to prevent its implementation. Rivlin speaks out against the two-state solution and also votes against any move that even hints at it. Netanyahu was finance minister in the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that voted in favor of Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Since that time, he does not miss an opportunity to present disengagement as a mistake.

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