Abbas: Palestinians will go to UN before Israel's elections- Rivlin fears low voter turnout
News Feed
Rivlin fears low voter turnout in Israeli elections
President tells business conference that a Jewish state cannot exist without being democratic; urges politicians to form central political blocs.
President Reuven Rivlin said on Sunday that he fears low voter turnout in the upcoming Knesset election, and called on the public to get out and vote. “I am afraid that the public will not vote in the election because it does not believe in this election, and lack of faith in the election among the public could disrupt our democratic system,” he told the Globes Israel Business Conference at the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv.
“Maybe there will be some statement here that democracy is not useful for us,” Rivlin said. “We saw the poll – 93 percent of the respondents think that the government is led by considerations that are foreign to Israel’s population and society. This is a serious matter ... The political leaders must also understand that going back to central political blocs is the most important thing for governance and for the ability to make decisions that often require tough choices on all the issues that we are dealing with.”
Rivlin also mentioned the recent tensions between Jews and Muslims. “We believe that Jews and Arabs were meant to live together because we live in the same geographical area, and we must find the way to live together. Also, as a Jew, as a devoted Zionist, I believe with absolute faith in the existence of a Jewish state, but a Jewish state cannot exist without being democratic. The duty to bridge the possible gaps between ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic’ falls upon the majority, thank God, the Jewish majority in the Land of Israel.”
Rivlin also spoke about the problem of racism in Israeli sports, particularly among fans of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club, and said that he has stopped going to the team’s home games. “I can no longer go to Teddy Stadium when terrible slogans are shouted from the bleachers – slogans that violate my beliefs as an Israeli and as a human being who built this Israeli state from the Jewish root that so yearned and prayed for its establishment. The eastern bleachers of Beitar, which have become the whole soccer pitch at Teddy Stadium, have become a sickening place for me, and I express my regret to the tens of thousands of Beitar fans who deal with this problem and feel as I do, but say nothing in response to it.”
تعليقات