Tzipi Livni, who twice nearly became the prime minister of Israel, walked into a chic, crowded Madison Avenue café with little fanfare, save for a few security guards, and had to wait for a table. She had come to New York fresh from Washington, where her address to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was evidently deemed so unimportant that it wasn’t even posted on the organization’s Web site.
Welcome to the opposition.
Although Livni’s Kadima party received the most votes in February’s national election, it was Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu who was asked to form a government. Livni declined to join, for reasons she will gladly explain. Now, the woman with the stellar right-wing pedigree, who became the symbol of Israel’s nascent political center, is transforming herself again, this time into the loyal opposition. And it’s clear that she intends to be loyal on some issues — chief among them, Iran — and in firm opposition on others: primarily the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something the current government in Jerusalem does not endorse.
On this, she is passionate. “Dividing the land into two states is in Israeli interests,” Livni said in a wide-ranging interview with the Forward on May 5. “My ideology is not connected to the Palestinians. I don’t think that I’m doing them a favor. My ultimate goal is the nature of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. The vision is not Jews living in the land of Israel but Jews living in a democratic state, which means a Jewish majority.”
Her words may have been well-rehearsed, but that doesn’t dull their impact. Although she’s used to a place on the world stage as a former foreign minister and ruling party leader, Livni, 50, can be just as articulate in the confines of a noisy café.
She shed her jacket as she sat down, pulled back her hair, and warmed up to the conversation. A cappuccino — “very strong” — may have helped, but it’s clear that she’s not relinquishing her voice in her new role.
Leading the opposition, she acknowledged, is complicated. Afraid that her enemies will exploit too much criticism of Israel, Livni is cautious about directly criticizing Netanyahu, especially outside of Israel, and won’t be drawn into speculating about how his differences with the Obama administration will play out. The United States and Israel “had also in the past some differences,” she said with a shrug.
Instead, her approach is to acknowledge the common ground she and Netanyahu share about the threat posed by Iran, and then to emphasize her own staunch support of the two-state solution. She’s willing to advocate shrinking the footprint of Israel, knowing full well what that means historically and ideologically. After all, this is the daughter of an Irgun fighter who insisted that an engraving of the whole biblical land of Israel with a gun and bayonet be carved onto his tombstone.
“I believe in the rights of the Jewish people to the entire land. I still feel this feeling I had as a child. I can understand the settlers in terms of understanding their feelings,” she said, her voice husky, as she gestured to her gut. But without two states for two people, “we are losing something which is more than just the existence of Jews in the land of Israel. It’s the values of the nature of the state of Israel.”
When told of a theory discussed in Israel — that Netanyahu would tell President Obama that Livni’s refusal to join a coalition meant that he had no choice but to create a right-wing government — the normally reticent Livni did something unusual: She laughed out loud.
“We are all grown-ups. Hello!” she exclaimed. In her view, Netanyahu had two options: Create a narrow government with parties to his right, or join Livni in a broader coalition of equals. (After all, Kadima won one more seat in the Knesset than Likud.) From her perspective she earned a legitimate place at the governing table, but Netanyahu offered her only a spot on the sidelines.
As a lawyer, she said, she would tell a client, “You can’t put your name, recognition, your money in a company without having share in the control.” As a political figure, she couldn’t join a government that didn’t offer her a genuine opportunity to lead. And she wouldn’t take a post as minister-of-whatever just for the title.
“The idea of the opposition is to keep the alternative, to give hope for those who believe in our way, that we didn’t abandon our way just to be ministers,” she said, in a not-so-subtle dig at Labor Party leader Ehud Barak.
Livni is out of power, but not bowed by being the outsider. As the child of Likudniks, she learned early on how to stand up for herself in a country that was dominated by Labor. As a woman in a political world still largely ruled by men, she has shown a toughness that has surprised even her detractors.
“Tell me about it!” she laughed, when asked about the role of women in Israeli society. “Just imagine how it is to enter a room with all the generals around, and the only way they see a woman is serving them coffee.”
And with that, Livni donned her jacket and prepared to move on to her next appointment — with former President Bill Clinton, also out of power, but hardly removed from the world stage.
Contact Jane Eisner at eisner@forward.com.
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Go, girl! but careful of letting the Iran issue be used to prevent what's needed for work on two-state solution -- which seems to be Bibi's strategy, however sincere he may or may not be. Others will be at work on Iran issues, but only Israelis, Palestineans and Americans really care about creating peace, and need to get on with it.
As Obama said to the Republicans, " I won the Election so Netanyahu implied when he offered Livni a seat at the Cabinet. He could have rulled without either Kadima of Labor, but from previous experience, he wanted a Unity Government that would not fall at the least bit of pique by one of the tiny parners he had accumulated. Knowing Barak"s character he knew that by offering him defense he could bring Labor in, and thus hold a solid foundation on the Government. In truth, Livni is irrelavent at this point. The people of Isral do not need Kadima's leadership which has had only defeats politically in the world and at best weak military victories.I say weak as they never set out to accomplish what they were fought about. To my mind, when you utterly destroy infrastructure, and renew deterance, you haven't really lost wars. Notice Nassarella didn't dare attack Israel while it was completely destroying Gaza. I wonder why.
Peace is an efemeral word. Peace could mean no war or in fact no threat of war. For Israel, I am afraid, it will always, in the near future, be no war. The Israel today is not the Israel that Baker, Scocroft, and Brysinski beat up on. US leverage is not near as great as it was then. I am a born American and a WW II Veteran and very Loyal to the United States. This does not mean I have to support the devestaING policy of this Administration. It is either naive or there are very evil things happening undeneath that veneer of Loyal Friendship for Israel that Obama professes.
I am a Democrat, not a Likudnik. As such, I am very much concerned that in order to form a government in Israel, netanyahu preferred to make a deal with an outright fascist and racist like Avigdor Lieberman than with Tzipi Livni. Barak, too, has sold his soul for a piece of the action. This spells an end to the very principles and ideals on which Israel was established. Thank goodness for the Promised land, the one in which I live, America. I, too, am a veteran of World War 2.
I was once a zionist. I believed in those principles and ideals, the ones which the israel of today has ceased to practice. if my president, mr. obama, should choose to differ with the Israeli government on the question of two separate nations in what used to be called palestine , i humbly suggest that he might be doing more good for israel and zionism than israel's own government.
From your Post I could not believe you were an Obama Democrat-not. You are either unknowing of what is going on in Israel or you have been brainwashed as to what Leiberman and Likud are. Leiberman is not a Fasciast, nor a racist. You get your information from the Left Wing Press and you believe all the crap that they spew.
As for Loyalty Oaths, do you realize that if you have any children or you were a child, or are a child you pledge a Loyalty Oath to this Country every morning in school. If you ever served in the Military of this country, which I doubt, you pledge a loyalty oath when you are inducted. What objection could you possibly have for an Israeli Citizen giving a loyalty oath to the Stae of Israel unless you happen to be an Arab who preaches treason to the state but gladly accepts all of the benefits of that State.
Leiberman is saying what most Israelis feel. They are disgusted with the left for selling out the country for these past eight years. Sharone surely must have had earlier strokes that changed his pwrsonality completely. Why else would he advocate exiting Gaza and turning it into Hamastan which constantly attacked Israel for eight years of rockets and then starting a war in good faith, that would have ended them once an for all and took part in stoping it before it could complete its mission. What did Kadima accomplish towards peace through its reign?
Would you please tell me what you think Zionism'principles are? I would really like to know what you think they are. You had better pray that Israel is successful in all of its endeavors as it may be your escape hatch before they march you to the ovens. Why don't you get real and see where Anti- semitism is rampant even in the good old USA. With a name like Friedlander your not about to escape.
"it may be your escape hatch before they march you to the ovens. Why don't you get real and see where Anti- semitism is rampant even in the good old USA. With a name like Friedlander your not about to escape"
So, Leonard, "they" are here again? We aren't safe anywhere! "They" are everywhere around! Where to go? Maybe nut-house could be the very place.
i will serve zippy her coffee, generally and generously, as well...
"Livni Is Learning" . That's good, she needs it and she should have enough time for practice in the opposition. Israel is sick of those Leftist, selling out to the enemy. Bibi should in his first visit in the White House make it clear to President Obama, that there is just one thing more important to Israel than the "special relationship" with America : her own survival. To follow the way this administration seems to prescribe to Israel would leed to her annihilation.
I have heard about "Jews" like James Friedlander, devoid of Jewish concerns and ignorant to the point criminality. With Jews like him, we don't have to worry about "goyim" abandoning Israel. But I am happy from the other letters that he remains a minority. Let us hope that this minority shrinks. Nathan
The trouble with Zippy is that she is bought a line that was offered by Labor a few years ago, and thinks it still works. Hammas ain't buying the two-state solution and all too-many leaders of the respectable world want them in the talks.
She would have an valid point, if . . . say, the Sinn Fein accepted a two-state solution for the Irish, which they don't. Lucky for the world the Brits still have a "voice" in world affairs so nobody cheps with them on their own turf. Then too, the world is lucky that even the most nationistic Finns are not hot to trot on gettin' Karelia back from the Russians--it costs too much, politically, and the idea of "buying out" the Ukrainians and White Russians who were brought in to replace the Finnish population is too expensive for most people in Finland.
With us, its like asking the good people of the State of Georgia to step aside and return what was stolen from the Cherokee Nation in 1835. Yes, Justice Marshall said the forced removal of Native Americans from that state was unconstitutional, but . . . Jackson pulled a Bush, it was "law shmaw", as far as history was concerned.
Ya' know, it sounds heretical, but if the Greeks and the Turks could come up with a deal in 1921 to draw a border and transfer the populations. Or even better, offer the Turks, who expelled the Greeks from two fifths of Cyprus a basket of sour grapes by "not reuniting" that island nation, and, in the process keeping Turkey out of the EU by proxy. Yeah, the possibiliety of Israel becoming a member of the EU, followed by a UN plebescite offering the unification of the State of Israel followed by the Jewish State deciding that the Arab Palestinians can remain what they are . . . outside of the EU.
I have listened long enough to the accusations launched against a new president who wants bipartisanship. The right has made a point of trying to destroy his presidency. You cannot be pro Israel and launch attacks against Palestinians. Any one with a few brain cells should know this. President Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are still revered around the country and the world. As I read some of these smear comments, I wonder how anyone would consider this strategy a winning one. The ignorance is astounding. We need to heal this nation from the last eight years of corruption and afford this new president an opportunity to pass his agenda without obstructionist.
I am not jewish but as an american I firmly believe that an agreed upon rules of engagement by all concerned parties,REGARDLES OF OPPOSING VIEWS MERITS CONSIDERATION.OUR COUNTRY IS ENEGAGED IS ALL SORTS OF MEASURES TO COUNTER EXTREMISTS ALL OVER THE WORLD. tHE MIDDLE EAST IS ONLY ONE OF THE HOT SPOTS BUT ONE THAT CAN IGNITE. AMERICA IS STILL REELING FROM THE ASSAULT OF 9/11 AND CONSTANLY REMINDED AT THE AIRPORT CHECK INS.tHE RHETORIC EXPLODING DURING THE TOWN HALL MEETINGS AND RHETORIC OFFERED TO EXPLAIN POSITIONS PRO AND CON REGARDING THE WEST BANK AND THE SETTLEMENTS END IN MORE OF THE SAME.WE MAY BE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.wHATS IN STORE FOR US OR FOR EVERYBOY.THE DUST CLOUD?