Rivlin reaffirms commitment to West Bank settlements

President Reuven Rivlin played up his right-wing bonafides and affirmed his support for Israel’s settlement enterprise in a meeting Wednesday with young activists after coming under fire for taking a dovish turn since taking office.

Rivlin told his audience, members of the nationalist Beitar youth movement along with West Bank residents, that he was still a believer in “greater Israel,” and only seemed more liberal since he was being quoted more now, the NRG website reported.

Though widely viewed as a political hawk, Rivlin surprised many since coming into office by being an outspoken critic of the “Jewish state” bill, attacks on Arabs, including so-called “price tag” incidents, and racism in general.

According to activist Sara Ha’etzni-Cohen, who prompted the meeting by publicly criticizing Rivlin, the president reaffirmed his opposition to “price tag” attacks and said he will continue to denounce them, but stressed “that does not mean I am no longer a believer in Greater Israel.

“I love the land of Israel and the settlement enterprise, but I have always been liberal. In my opinion,” the president explained, “what’s happening is that since I’ve become president they’ve been quoting me more and more and using the things that I say.”

On October, Ha’etzni-Cohen, head of the nationalist “My Israel” organization, accused the president in an article on the NRG website of condemning Jewish actions more harshly than Arab ones, specifically amid growing ethnic violence at the time in Jerusalem.

“It was important to me to say how much I love him and how much I’m disappointed in him,” Ha’etzni-Cohen explained later.

Rivlin’s office called Ha’etzni-Cohen to arrange a meeting with her and other right-wing youth leaders.

“We spoke openly about everything and about the criticism from the right in regards to why it seems Rivlin has left the conservative camp and moved to Israel’s left,” she said.

The eight representatives at the meeting brought up the case of a fire in a mosque near Ramallah, which the president immediately condemned as a “price tag” arson attack, but later was determined to be an electrical fire. “We asked him to be more considerate and not immediately to denounce,” she said.

Ha’etzni-Cohen praised the meeting as helpful and held in a positive atmosphere, “but despite that it seems that he is resolute in his opinion.”