Einstein the President?

Albert Einstein was once offered the Presidency of Israel. He declined saying he had no head for problems. Einstein was famously a pacifist, he was strongly against war and violence. Long before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Einstein had said that its only basis could be peaceful co-existence between Jews and Arabs. In 1952, Einstein was invited to become the second president of Israel. “I am deeply moved by the offer, and both saddened and ashamed that I cannot accept. But I lack both the natural aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise official functions. I am the more distressed, because my relationship to the Jewish people has become my strongest bond,” he said. Einstein's last, unfinished, document was the draft of a speech to mark Israel's Independence Day. His opening remarks commented on long-term conflict between Israel and Egypt. 'You may think this is a small and insignificant problem and that there are more serious things to worry about. But this is not true. In matters of truth and justice there can be no distinction between big problems and small...Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs....’