Israeli President Reuven Rivlin again challenged the contemporary notion of being Israeli.

Delivering a speech at his residence on Tuesday as part of the Herzliya Conference, Rivlin called on adapting Israeli reality to non-Zionist citizens, both Jews and Arabs.

"Do I expect or demand that all Israeli citizens be Zionists? No," said Rivlin. "Not all Jews sing Hativka (the national anthem). Not all Jews are Zionists. Do they not have the right to be Israelis?"

Rivlin recalled in his speech a meeting with an Arab pupil in a Jerusalem school who told him that she wanted to identify with the state but could not identify with the anthem. "What can I do if my heart yearns but is not Jewish?" she asked Rivlin. The president said, "I understood, and I hurt at her question."

Rivlin noted the difficulty with which the state deals with in fostering unity among the nation. "A brief look at Jerusalem, the biggest Arab city in Israel, the biggest ultra-Orthodox city in Israel, the biggest religious city in Israel and the second biggest secular city in Israel, to understand that market forces by themselves and alternately good intent of organizations and individuals by itself won't be able to meet the scope of the challenge."

Rivlin repeatedly referred to the speech he gave a year ago at the previous Herzliya Conference, in which he characterized Israeli society as a tribal state made up of four groups and noted that no tribe has a majority in Israel. During his speech on Tuesday, Rivlin referred to, for the first time, four "engines of change" that are likely to assist in integrating the different streams in Israel into a shared society: public service, academia and the labor market, the education system and partnership between local councils.

"What seems at a national political level as an intractable conflict, as a zero-sum game between secular people, religious and ultra-Orthodox people, between Arabs and Jews, over budgets and resources, over control and character, can turn into an opportunity at the civilian level for a meeting of interests and desires, and an opportunity for cooperation," said Rivlin.

"Regional development, development of infrastructures and health services, an increase in quality of life – all these things become more possible when we work together, when we leverage the advantage of size," he said. "When the quality of life of my neighbors is higher, the personal security of my community is higher. The need for cooperation rises, the more that mutual dependence is higher."

Rivlin said, "If in past the army was Israeli society's main meeting space, academia and the labor market have become the number one place in which Israeli society meets itself in the new Israeli order."

He added: "Academia and the labor market are the gateway to fulfilling the Israeli dream. They are the ticket for all of us to influential foci in the economy. For the first time, a shared space is being created in them for creating joint language and goals. There is shaped a feeling of belonging and social standing. There, the ideological richness in human diversity is not a threat but rather a competitive advantage."