Reuven Rivlin landed the prized position of the president of the State of Israel after swimming for many years in the stormy and often murky waters of Israeli politics. Everyone knows that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not his cup of tea, to put it mildly. Once, when he was still only “Ruvy,” the Likud legislator and loyal fan of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, he joked that an elephant with Netanyahu’s hide had been discovered in Africa. So why is such an experienced and savvy politician going all out to keep Netanyahu at the official residence on Balfour Street? Why is he making such efforts to find a compromise for Netanyahu and Benny Gantz to form a unity government?

Hard to believe that Rivlin truly thought Netanyahu’s rivals, Gantz and his Blue and White party colleagues would jump at the strange deal he proposed to them and to the Israeli public on Sept. 25. The president proposed a rotation agreement between Netanyahu and Gantz together with a legal change to the position of “substitute prime minister” that would grant the officeholder “full power” in case the prime minister could not carry out his duties (such as in the case of an indictment). Rivlin surely knew he was declaring the deal dead on arrival, but at the same time fired the starting gun for the race to succeed Netanyahu as Likud leader and to serve half a term as prime minister. The other half, according to the job-sharing idea Rivlin proposed, would be reserved for Gantz.

When Rivlin implored politicians to stop boycotting other parties in order to enable the formation of a unity government led by Likud and Blue and White, he was obviously not referring to the boycott imposed by the right-wing parties against the Arab parties. The only “boycott” obstructing the way to a government supported by the 65 newly elected Likud and Blue and White Knesset members is Blue and White’s refusal to join a government led by a suspect facing criminal indictment (pending a hearing before the attorney general) on charges of corruption. The bizarre idea of appointing Gantz a “substitute prime minister” with full powers in the expected event that Netanyahu is forced to take a leave of absence to deal with his indictments has nothing to do with the state’s special security or economic needs.

This patchwork arrangement was tailored to fit Netanyahu in a move that has made it abundantly clear to every reasonable person that this man, and this man alone, is driving an entire country insane. If Netanyahu had only agreed to relinquish his hold on power, Israel would have been spared two election cycles. Had he taken leave to convince a court of his innocence, Israel would have had a stable government by now based on its two leading parties.