Rivlin was elected President of Israel (a largely ceremonial post with a seven year term) in June 2014. He is a one state guy who believes that Israel should annex the West Bank; he believes, as he must, that Palestinians and Jews should be able to live together.

Rivlin, it strikes me, is a man who realizes that distributing justice, economic privilege, and the rights of citizenship based on ethnic-majority status is a flimsy basis on which to establish a state. In the United States some of the descendants of white European settlers are still struggling to learn this lesson.