Rivlin fears low voter turnout in Israeli elections-Abbas: Palestinians will go to UN before Israel's elections
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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.”
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