FOREIGN Minister Tzipi Livni seems set to become Israel’s next prime minister having defeated Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz for job. Her election has to be cautiously welcomed, as the Palestinian Authority officials have done, but for all the wrong reasons. They are that things would have been far worse if Mofaz had won. This former head of the Israeli military, who three years ago tried to become Likud leader and only left to join the new Kadima party because Likud would not have him, is a arch hawk whom the Palestinians have every reason to fear. His orders of house demolitions and raids into Gaza and against Jenin were the least of his crimes. This is the man who is credited with demanding that Israeli forces kill 70 Palestinians a day during the second intifada. Had he won the race to succeed the discredited Ehud Olmert, he would have set the Middle East spiraling down into conflict. He has already said that an attack on Iran is “inevitable” given its nuclear plans and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s talk about Israel needing to be “wiped off” the map. The prospect of him running Israel was frightening indeed.
Livni is also a better option than Likud’s equally belligerent Benjamin Netanyahu. He certainly would not bring peace to the Middle East or justice for the Palestinians. Not that it is a sure conclusion that he will not be the next prime minister rather than Livni. She has to put together a coalition within the next six weeks, during which Olmert will remain caretaker prime minister. If she fails, new elections have to take place. There is no guarantee she will succeed. One of the coalition partners, the religious party Shas, had threatened to pull out over child welfare allowances but now suggests it will stay on if there is extra assistance for the poor. On the other hand, if she dares discuss the future of Jerusalem with the Palestinians, it says it will leave — which clearly limits her room for maneuver on the issue. Meanwhile, Labor, the big coalition partner, has said it will stay. It clearly does not want an election that Likud could win. However, the mood is not unanimous. Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon, a Labor member close to Ehud Barak, Labor’s leader, has called for elections largely because of the embarrassingly small margin by which Livni won to succeed Olmert as leader of the Kadima party and therefore prime minister — a mere 431 votes.
The fact that Israel’s new prime minister was decided up by so few people may well infuriate voters; it will certainly be used by Likud as a stick with which to beat her. Even if she manages to pull together a Cabinet, it could provide cause for future defections and its downfall.
But assuming she manages to form a Cabinet that survives, what then? The Israeli press calls her “the Iron Lady” but unlike the better known holder of that title, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, there is little at this point, despite her meteoric rise to power, to justify it. She is known to be opposed to Palestinians having the right of return but she also favors withdrawing settlements from the West Bank (although not all). It is this latter plus her apparent pragmatism and lack of doctrinaire ideology that has led the Palestinian authorities to think that she is someone they can deal with (but Hamas thinks she will be no different from any other Israeli leader). But none of this suggests determination. So, is she tough because she will force the Israelis to accept compromises that are needed for peace or is her supposed toughness, in fact, going to be directed at the Palestinians?
At this point it is impossible to say. She is certainly one of the most charismatic leaders the Israelis have had; intelligent too. But for the moment, she is still an unknown quantity.
