From the Liveblog of
Sunday, August 17, 2025
Former president Rivlin visits Jerusalem hostage protest, says demonstrations are not political
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Speaking at a hostage families protest tent in Jerusalem, former president Reuven Rivlin insists that the struggle to return the hostages is an apolitical one.
“This here is not, and I did not come to, a political demonstration,” Rivlin says.
The former president adds that Israelis “live in a country whose name precedes it throughout the nations of the world, in those that love us, and those that love us less.”
“Today we find ourselves in a situation in which on one side, there is the antisemitic right, and on the other side, the left — which no longer supports Israel’s position that the war is just,” he says.
“As we are blamed by the entire world, we need to demand from everyone and say unequivocally” that the first priority is “the urgent need to return all our citizens — and [foreign] guests — that were kidnapped here, back within the borders of the State of Israel,” he continues.
Before becoming president from 2014 to 2021, Rivlin served as a Likud lawmaker.
In recent years, he has voiced opposition to policies advanced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, including the controversial judicial overhaul plan that sparked months of protests in 2023.
The Times of Israel Community.