Israeli presidential hopeful supports Palestinian deal
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Meir Sheetrit supports Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, even though this might not be the most popular stance with the Israeli public for a presidential hopeful.
“There is no reason to be alarmed by the Fatah-Hamas agreement. This actually could be an opportunity for us,” says Knesset member Meir Sheetrit (the Hatnua Party chairman) as he attempts to moderate the aggressive responses evinced by Israel’s prime minister and the right-wing ministers toward the news of the Palestinian reconciliation.
This is a brave stance, uttered loud and clear. His manner seems to contradict what is expected of someone running for the role of president, and is supposed to try and please as many Knesset members as possible. After all, they are the ones who will make the decision. But Sheetrit swims against the current, and not for the first time.
When he was in the Likud Party, Sheetrit spoke in favor of the two-state solution and paid a political price for doing so. He left it for the Kadima Party with the late Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and when that party fell apart, Sheetrit chose Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s side and founded the Hatnua Party with her. They ended up with only six mandates and Sheetrit, who had served as a high-ranking minister in all the previous Likud and Kadima governments (justice, finance, interior and housing ministries) — was forced to settle for faction chairman.
Now, Sheetrit is busy running for the presidency. Evidently the elections will take place during June and it's difficult, if not impossible, to lay bets on the results. There are at least six candidates already, out of which three are active politicians: Knesset member Reuven "Rubi" Rivlin, Knesset member Binyamin Ben Eliezer and Sheetrit. There are also three “external” candidates: Former Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner, former Minister Dalia Itzik and Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry Dan Shechtman.
