Yehuda Stern for President!

Yes yes, I know what you're thinking.

On the one hand, there's the purists (and don't you hate those): Israel is a Zionist, capitalist, imperialist state! Even if you could become its head of state, why would you ever do that? How can you want to be a leading figure of a country which is so vile in your eyes? You would be corrupted, you would have to justify the most terrible crimes against humanity for a living, and you would end up not changing anything, seeing as how Presidents are merely ceremonial figureheads.

To these people I say: you are absolutely right. But I dunno, it really sounds like easy money.

More importantly, there's also the pessimists: there's no chance in hell someone like you could ever become President of Israel! First of all, you support having a Palestinian workers' state from the river to the sea, which kinda leaves Israel's existence in question. Plus, nobody likes you and even fewer people know you exist. What makes you think you have any chance of becoming President of a country where you refer to most people through the use of pejoratives?

Ah, but here you are wrong, my friends. Given recent developments, I think I have every chance to win the support of many, many people in this country. Indeed, given recent developments, I anticipate that by 2019, I will become the beloved President of this not-so-great not-really-a-nation. 

Why is that? Well, as you may have heard by now, recently our dear President Rivlin gave a speech in Kafr Qasim apologizing for the many wrongs done to the Palestinian people by the Zionist state, including the notorious Kafr Qasim massacre, in which 49 Palestinian citizens were murdered by Zionist savages with all the humane spirit of the Einsatzgruppen, a mere 11 years after the Jewish holocaust. Actually, that might be overselling it. In reality, Rivlin paid some lip service to equality, talking about how maybe Israeli Arabs suffered from discrimination at certain points and he just might do something about it one day, by god. I won't hold my breath, seeing as how this is the man who supported the mass murder of over 2000 Palestinians in Gaza just a few months back and has capitulated to hardline orthodox Rabbis on several issues - most notably, women's rights and the attitude to non-orthodox Jews - but that's not the point.

 The point is that the things Rivlin says are so well-received by people from the left, it's just crazy. All it took was for a rather hardline Zionist politician to say a few things about equality, and just like that, an entire army of useful idiots from the Israeli left has dedicated itself to proclaiming Rivlin a great democrat, a true leader and the Messiah, all rolled into one. Things really came to a head in this Haaretz article, where Rivlin is proclaimed "Israel's one-state president" (one Jewish state, it should be said, but who cares? Palestinian self-determination, Palestinian self-shmetermination!), and - not only that - a "lone voice against anti-Arab racism".

Well, fuck you. Lone voice? I don't know if you're noticing, but there are quite a few voices against anti-Arab racism - all of those Arab activists (and also people just walking down the street) who are getting murdered and beaten by Zionist police and military on a daily basis! But don't remind the Zionist liberals about that. Arabs are to neither be seen nor heard. They are to accept our lofty ideals of equality at face value and otherwise remove themselves from our presence.  Even among Jews, he is hardly a "lone voice". In fact, during the summer, many Jewish leftists got beaten up by fascist thugs and police for opposing the mass murder which Rivlin supported enthusiastically.

But I'm getting angry again. My apologies. The point is: if Rivlin can get so much support for his pretty moderate views on equality, imagine how enthusiastically the left would accept me! I'm practically a shoe-in.

But now I'm getting a really scary thought. What if - and this is just a thought - what if Israeli leftists don't really want someone who is honest in opposing racism? What if - again, just a thought - all they care about is having someone up there who can talk like a liberal, without really changing anything? Someone who can defend their privileges, but not in a way that would make them feel uncomfortable, that would make them feel weak and exposed in the face of the oppressed masses on the one hand and the reactionary mob on the other? What if all they are looking for is a Christ-figure, to suffer for their sins, to cleanse their souls, so they could put his image in their houses of worship, to put him on a pedestal, an empty idol to distract them from their own emptiness?

Nah. I think I'm good.