Originally posted: September 18th 2008.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has claimed victory as the new leader of the ruling Kadima Party and could be Israel's next prime minister - or to put it another way, the Zionist occupation's next leader. She certainly has 'form': Her father, Eltan, was a member of the Irgun, one of the Jewish terrorist organizations that fought the British who ruled Palestine before the creation of Israel.
Although Livni, born in 1958 in Tel Aiv, served in the military for a while and later carried out undisclosed missions as a Paris-based agent for Mossad, she is not primarily known for the 'security'-based entries on her CV. As it was in Rome that Mordechai Vanunu, the man who revealed to the London Times the 'secret' of Israel's 20 nuclear warheads in 1986, fell victim to a seductress from Mossad, we can at least rule Ms Livni out of that one.
After a ten-year career in law, she entered politics in 1999 coached by Ariel Sharon, then leader of the right-wing Likud Party but famed mostly for the Shatila Massacre. She was closely involved in the stage-managed 'withdrawal' from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and late that year she followed Sharon when he founded the centrist Kadima Party.
She has said she believes that all of so-called Greater Israel - a theoretical land that runs from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea - should be a homeland for the Jews, but she has moderated that position considerably over the years, now being seen as a leading proponent of the (conveniently rather vague) idea that Israel should make territorial concessions.
The current leader, Ehud Olmert, announced that he would step down to fight the corruption allegations against him, but he remains in charge until a new coalition government is formed or until elections are held.
The Israeli embassy deputy chief of mission in Australia, Eli Yerushalmi, insisted that Ms Litvni must form a coalition of compromise if she wants to be the regime's next leader. 'In terms of her being prime minister and a different leadership and so on, I think her positions are very, very well known,' he said, 'In terms of the 'peace process' and everything to do with that, then I think she'll go by the lines that we've seen in the last couple of years. As you know, Tzipi Livni is more to the centre, even centre-left.'
And as Mr Yerushalmi explains, it is difficult to predict whether the Labour Party will join her as it did with Mr Olmert.
'There are two parties which are kind of hesitating at the moment. One is the Shas Party, which is an ultra-orthodox Sephardic party who tends to be a little bit more on the right-wing side of Israeli politics,' he added.
Even as the vote for a new leader has been taking place, Mr Olmert has been holding what he has called 'serious talks' appropriately enough with his discredited opposite number, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas. Mr Yerushalmi says any government of Israel [Palestine], including one led by Ms Livni, will try to move forward in terms of the 'peace process', but he qualified this by adding:
This is the most important thing for us, meaning the most important thing for us right now is of course Israel's security and Israel's survival. We're facing a major, major issue with Iran threatening to destroy Israel and trying to obtain nuclear weapons. That is the most important issue right now on any agenda of any Israeli government or the Israeli people.'
So Israel is to remain the only 'rogue state' in the Mediterranean allowed WMD - a monopoly backed to the hilt by the US; although this may be scaled down as America runs out of money.
...'And the second thing is of course the continuation of the 'peace process'. We've been discussing negotiating for many, many years and we still haven't solved some of the basic issues on the table.' (The issues he is talking about do not necessarily include the use of the Gaza Strip as an extermination camp and the denial of all rights to all non-Jewish Palestinians.)
Mr Yerushalmi though, is a realist. He does not think that there would be much of a difference between a government run by Ms Livni and one run by [fundamentalist] Mr Netanyahu. He admits:
'There is not a great difference in terms of how Israel handles itself in the peace process between right and left.'
'Despite the fact she has not been a prime minister, she has definitely been many, many years in Israel's government,' he said of Ms Livni, 'She's been foreign minister. She knows what she's talking about. She's participated in the negotiations, especially with the Palestinians.'
Critics are describing Tzipi Livni as inexperienced, though, and say she would not lead a strong government; although much will depend on how much of her past may be raked up and used against her as it has with Mr Olmert, and as it has with anyone who looked liable to compromise with the dispossessed Palestinian majority.
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