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Sep

17

And meanwhile…Tzipi Livni to become Israel’s first female prime minister since Golda?


Oh yeah – you forgot about this?  If you want your head to spin, read that full New York Times article.  Ah, coalition governments.  Talk about thinking the grass is always greener, when we’re complaining about our two-party system.

Ha’aretz says that a poll showed Tzipi Livni, currently Israel’s foreign minister, winning in a landslide:

Two days before the Kadima party’s leadership primary, a poll conducted by a Haaretz-Dialog and Channel 10 predicts a landslide victory for Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni over her main opponent Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz.

According to the poll, in the first round, Livni is expected to win 47% of the vote and Mofaz 28%, while Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit and Public Security Minister Avi Dichter would each get 6%.

Who is Tzipi Livni? Here’s an in-depth profile of her by the New York Times Magazine from last year.

And if you’re wondering about comparisons to the GOP’s current VP candidate? This profile, also from the NYT, but two and a half years ago, might be helpful:

Tzipi Livni, 47, is the first woman to serve as Israel’s foreign minister since Golda Meir did so half a century ago. Some think she may be the first since Ms. Meir to be prime minister.

Tall, neat and unadorned, she is a most unusual Israeli politician, a lawyer respected for integrity and her willingness to confront ideology with pragmatism.

But she is also a deeply Israeli figure, the daughter of Zionist guerrillas — terrorists in some eyes — who met in the Irgun, the underground organization that fought the British and the Arabs, and that blew up the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in 1946, killing 91 people.

Her father, Eitan, was the Irgun’s head of operations, and on his gravestone is the map of greater Israel, extending over both sides of the Jordan River; her mother, Sarah, who lives in Tel Aviv, was an Irgun heroine who had a song written about her.

This description and quote resonates deeply with me, and anyone who has read this blog for a while will recognize why (Livni is also just two years older than I am):

But what makes Ms. Livni extraordinary for many here, and what made her such an ally to Mr. Sharon as he fought with Likud and finally broke with it, is her ability to honor the dream while shaping it to reality. “I also believe, like my parents, in the right of the Jewish people to the entire land of Israel,” she said. “But I was also raised on other values, the need to preserve Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people, and our democratic values. It’s not any less important that Israel be a democracy, and there must be a Jewish majority.

“So choosing between my dreams, and my need to live in democracy, I prefer to give up some of the land and to live in a sovereign, Jewish, democratic state,” she said. “But it’s important to do it wisely.”

Her commitment to a two-state solution predated her late entry into politics. She served in the army, becoming a lieutenant, and at the age of 22 began working for the Mossad, the intelligence service, where she stayed for four years. She does not discuss those duties. “It was wonderful,” she said, laughing. “But it taught me skills I cannot use.”

The Mossad, suggests Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist at Hebrew University, brought her into contact with a world that did not always conform to her ideologically driven childhood and allowed an intellectual journey much like that of the acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, the cosmopolitan lawyer son of another Likud family.

“In the Mossad,” Mr. Avineri said, “you get a reality check, or a reality shock.” While the parental generation was ostracized by its ideology — Likud did not come to power until the late 1970′s — the children, like Ms. Livni, have become integrated. “It’s a journey from pariah to the establishment,” Mr. Avineri said. “There’s less anger and bitterness and more responsibility.”

Okay – no – I’ve never served in anything like the Mossad, but that idea of responsibility and less anger and bitterness, oh yes.

I can’t find anything that mentions how Livni might view the current GOP VP candidate, but this Jerusalem Post commentary states for the record just how different campaigning and politics are in Israel when it comes to kids and their connection to the parents’ political life.

I’ll try to remember to post results when they’re in for the Israeli election.

PS Here’s TIME magazine’s assessment, dated today:

The contrast between the two leading candidates seems to offer the voters a clear choice: Livni, 50, is an elegant but often humorless lawyer who did a brief stint in Europe as a Mossad agent. She is committed to seeking peace with the Palestinians, based on a two-state solution, and she is admired by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, among others, for her level-headedness and tenacity. A mother of three who lives in a modest Tel Aviv apartment, Livni’s image as “Mrs. Clean” resonates with Israelis tired of the sleaze associated with Olmert, the target of long police investigations into suspected fraud and bribery.

The Iranian-born Mofaz, 60, is selling himself to Kadima voters as a longtime soldier ever-vigilant against Israel’s enemies in the region. Mofaz distinguished himself through battlefield bravery as a corporal and then rose through the ranks to become army chief of staff and, later, Defense Minister. Officers who served with Mofaz praise his diligence, but say he lacks vision and flexibility.

Each candidate is likely to seek different allies in order to forge a coalition. Mofaz would be expected to try to form a coalition with parties to the right. But that would not include the Likud party of Benyamin Netanyahu, the hawkish ex-premier who wants to hasten Kadima’s demise because he thinks — and polls agree — that he would win a general election. Livni, by contrast, would tilt Kadima leftward, scooping up the far-left party Meretz and possibly an ultra-orthodox party, to gain a slim majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

Sigh, ah, yes, coalition government.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:21 am September 17th, 2008 in Israel, Politics, Women 

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