The Jerusalem Post

Friday, February 14, 1997
When history looks back on Ezer Weizman's term as president, it may well be this week's 'whistle stop' tour of the 73 bereaved families for which he will be most respected and remembered.

By its sheer physical and emotional scope, the journey across the length and breadth of the country to be with the families of the fighters during the week of mourning, was a unique event.

To the difficult task of sharing in grief, Weizman brings a sensitivity born of personal loss - his son, Shauli, who was wounded during the War of Attrition, later died in a car accident - and an example of how it is possible to overcome it.

Unlike most of his predecessors, and in the true tradition of a military man, Weizman has taken pains to visit almost all the IDF casualties in the hospitals and the bereaved families in their homes since assuming office. The alacrity with which he announced his decision to visit the families, on learning of the helicopter disaster, was therefore very much in keeping.

In May 1993, when Weizman assumed the presidency, there were pundits who said that the presidency had started with Weizmann - Chaim, Israel's first president - and would end with Weizman - his nephew, Ezer.

Chaim Weizmann, a renowned scientist, had been the archetype for many of his successors, with the notable exception of Yitzhak Navon - an ivory-tower figure, who mainly met the nation on formal occasions and whose strength lay in putting across Israel's image to the politicians of the world. Weizman the second is perceived as a forthright and charming sabra.

With the adoption of the law for the direct election of prime minister - which relieved the president of the decision on whom to confer the formation of the government - many felt that the presidency had assumed a totally ceremonial nature. Strange then that the man voted in as Israel's seventh president should be a volatile former politician and air-force commander with a reputation for putting his foot in his mouth and with little patience for the niceties of protocol.

And indeed, Weizman soon proved that words were not his strong point. There was his inaugural address in the Knesset which he rattled off like a military Order of the Day, and there was his mundane eulogy for Yitzhak Rabin at the state funeral, a missed historical opportunity.

On a different level, there were his unforgettable remarks about women ('meidele... I don't see men knitting socks,' in the case of a young woman who wanted to be a pilot). There was the furor he succeeded in creating about the gays ('I like men who are men and women who are women').

And at the same time, he was kicking up the dust with remarks to the government. It started most notably with his call on Labor, the party that had voted him in, to 'stop and think' about the peace process after the terrorist bombings a year ago. Many asked if Weizman was returning to his Likud affiliations.

And when the Likud-led government failed to move on the Hebron deal, there again was Weizman, this time reassuming the role of an architect of the Camp David accords.

And when Netanyahu failed to meet Yasser Arafat, it was Weizman who invited the PLO leader to Caesarea. And it was Weizman who succeeded in twisting the prime minister's arm as Netanyahu stood by his side to say the Prime Minister's Office would decide on a date to meet with Arafat.

Two trends were clearly emerging. First, Weizman was putting issues on the agenda and to a large extent he had become a vox populi. With his direct manner and his willingness to leap into any place, conversation or situation, he had become the mouthpiece of the man on the street, making them feel 'one of the boys.'

The presidency was becoming, as he likes to say, 'the one official institution which people get up in the morning and do not hate.'

Secondly, and as a corollary, Weizman appeared to be building up a power base of his own. The presidency began emerging as a kind of check-and-balance with the power of the prime minister, even though the presidential role was divested of executive teeth.

'I am staying in the country,' Weizman declared shortly after taking up office, apparently in reference to the globe-trotting propensity of sixth president Chaim Herzog.

'Since then, Weizman has taken a few trips abroad and these have made a significant economic, and perhaps also diplomatic, impact. But it is on the home field where Weizman has scored his greatest victory - to prove that the post of an Israeli president is still significant.