Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday participated in an official cremony marking the 46th anniversary of the passing of former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
Speaking about the current ongoing political deadlock, Rivlin said, "I turn to you, leaders of Israel. It seems that you simply want to go crazy, but why drag the nation together with you?"
Slamming the party leaders, he added: "I would not be exaggerating if I said that this is a time of suffering for the State of Israel and the government of Israel. This is not a time of suffering for one political side or another. It is a time of suffering for all of us - the State's citizens and its public figures."
"I turn to you, leaders of Israel: You are handling long, exhausting, and expectation-less negotiations for months already - stop it! Haim Hefer, one of our greatest composers, wrote in a popular youth song, 'We don't want to sleep, we want to go crazy!' And so, my dears, you have not slept for months already, and it seems to me that you simply want to go crazy. If that's what you want - then go crazy! But why drag with you the entire nation of Israel? There is still time and you can fix it - reach agreements and bring this State back to its proper path."
Emphasizing the extreme situation Israel has found itself in, Rivlin added: "Over the past year we saw again and again the political and constitutional lacunas, and we ended up embarrassed. Week after week, news headlines anounce that this time we ended up in an unprecedented situation which legislators have not foreseen. This, more than anything else, proves how extreme the situation we are in is. The law's silence in the face of 'unprecedented' situations shows how far our political system has strayed from its regular path to the unmarked, irregular, and dark margins."
Rivlin also called for calmer rhetoric on social media: "Annoyed tweets on Twitter, angry posts on Facebook, and even protests in city centers, do not mean there is a civil war or the end of democracy. Not every expression is incitement and not every time another position is allowed to be expressed does it silence [dissidents]."