Presisident Rivlin's disgusting behavior when visting the USA

Who are we to judge, from here in New York?

After all, Hillary Clinton is adored by so many here in America that she stands at least a 50/50 chance of getting to the White House.

This is the most corrupt woman in America that we’re talking about. Strangely and unwisely, the Republican contenders going at it in tonight’s CNN Debate, resolute as they were on defeating Radical Islam, they left Hillary mostly unscathed and laughing.

She is still laughing because she knows that before you can defeat ISIS you’ve got to defeat the Clintons, any Clinton, and the Clintons invented politics.

So we’re not so smart ourselves as we watch and even assist our country going down the tubes. We have no excuse.

What about the Israelis who are smart enough to advance technology and medicine to incredible heights but... 

But they got Reuven Rivlin.

Rivlin is President of Israel, a largely ceremonial post but still PRESIDENT, for crying out loud, and perhaps he needs to be reminded about the people he represents. He represents a people who were ordained by the Almighty Himself “to be for Me a kingdom of priests; a holy nation.”

Benjamin Netanyahu serves as prime minister. He is a politician. He is expected to mix it up, to be political and to get dusted up politically.

He would have been sensational in the CNN Debate.

But Rivlin, symbolically at least, sits near the throne of David. He is obliged to soar above it all.

This demands gravitas and dignity fit for a king; certainly not the behavior we witnessed from Rivlin in Washington, D.C, and New York, both places, where it hurts to say, his demeanor turned him into a laughingstock. He did no honor to himself or to his holy nation.

At least that’s the view from America…where passionate no-nonsense defenders of Israel (like myself) were put on the spot.

“What gives?” That was one question.” 

Next, “Where is the pride?” asked a non-Jewish friend, expecting me to deliver answers.

There is no answer when the Jewish head of state acts like a schnorrer.

In Washington Rivlin took part in a Hanukkah celebration that will always be remembered for the lecture from a reform “rabbi” that had no time for the Maccabees but plenty of time for Black Lives Matter, gun control, Islamophobia and “justice for the Palestinians.”

Rivlin, from all accounts, and from my friend Doodie’s description, “stood there with an indelibly stupid and clownish smile on his face.”

He made no protest and, if this is true, uttered praise for Allah – in Arabic. She did.

We are still talking about the President of Israel, but now move on to New York where Haaretz was having a party for its friends, among them the world’s most honored and most respected anti-Semites. Roger Waters attended. Haaretz is his kind of paper. Need we say more?

Yes we do. 

Rivlin showed up and may well have been the life of the party. He was full of praise for the radicalized Arab paper published in Hebrew.

I don’t do surveys. Doodie does. We go way back to Saint Urbain Street in Montreal. So Doodie did some canvassing. He interviewed scores of people at the New York Public Library because that’s where the people are, the thinking people, and the consensus from Jews and non-Jews alike is that Rivlin embarrassed nearly everybody who stands with Israel.

The prevailing view is that the head of state from no other country would mingle so approvingly with problematic people and their dubious causes.

It is unbecoming. It is undignified.

When the shofar blasts some of us here in America set everything else aside, place our lives at risk, and rush in for the sake of Zion.

During his days in the Knesset, Rivlin was known to champion minority (meaning Arab) rights. This is okay, I guess. This is his politics.

But as head of state we would expect him to drop his personal convictions in favor of the prestige and grandeur of his office.

His task is to defend the honor of Israel.

He owes that much to the state, the Jewish State that he represents at home and abroad. Into the teeth of Islamic terror that has us jittery, 

America could have used less clowning, rather a more formidable presence at a time when we seek reassurance from our most courageous and steadfast ally.

We sink or swim together.

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the international classic “Indecent Proposal” now followed by the prophetic thriller “The Bathsheba Deadline.” Engelhard is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com