On February 12, Isaac Herzog—Israel’s current president and a former leader of the Labor party—gave a speech about the ongoing public debate over judicial reform, affirming the legitimacy of both sides’ concerns and urging leaders to find a lasting compromise. Such an intervention was an unusual step in a country where the president is for the most part a figurehead, expected to stay above the political fray, and indeed Herzog did his best to express himself in nonpartisan terms. Haviv Rettig Gur believes the speech had significant effects:
The speech didn’t spark a mad rush to compromise, but the political vocabulary changed instantly. Politicians who’d spent weeks showcasing their partisan bona fides now declared their eagerness for dialogue. . . . Justice Minister Yariv Levin [one of the architects of the proposed reforms], made a point of welcoming dialogue even as he explained why he wouldn’t slow the pace of legislation. . . . Under the public gaze directed his way by the president, he suddenly understood he needed to show he was rational and open to compromise.
On the center-left, the process was much the same. The demand to cancel the plan outright transformed into a demand for a temporary pause—[the opposition leader] Yair Lapid called for a 60-day freeze—to allow for serious negotiations.
There’s a reason Herzog’s speech had that effect, and it points to a surprising new role he has carved out for the Israeli presidency in his twenty months in the position, a role probably unprecedented in Israeli history. . . . One obvious example was his role in the revival of diplomatic ties with Turkey. In March 2022, Herzog traveled to Ankara for a state visit. He was received with unusual warmth by Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a sharp change in tone from the years when Turkey was the de-facto leader of an anti-Israel, Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated axis in the region.
The visit was first and foremost a calculated geopolitical pivot for both Ankara and Jerusalem. But it was also a result of Herzog’s unexpectedly close ties with the Turkish president, the culmination of a long process of careful relationship-building on Herzog’s part that opened a channel of communication between the two men.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-sudden-surprising-indispensability-of-the-israeli-presidency/