Tzipi Livni Could Expose Netanyahu
Israeli politician Tzipi Livni should enter coalition negotiations and position herself to call Prime Minister Netanyahu out on his peace declarations, writes Akiva Eldar.
The citizens of Israel have the right to realize at long last what is hiding behind the peace mask of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And there is only one person who can expose once and for all his true face — Tzipi Livni.
There is not a single political commentator in Israel who believes that on January 23, the day following the upcoming election to the Knesset, Netanyahu will have to pack up his stuff and leave the Prime Minister’s office. The big question of the forthcoming parliamentary election is who's going to sit around the government table next to the ministers of Likud Beitenu. The favorite candidates are the parties known as “the natural partners”: the far-right, nationalist alliance of HaIchud HaLeumi-HaBayit HaYehudi and the ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and Yahadut HaTorah. Most probably, Netanyahu will not make do with this limited list of coalition partners. His first tenure as prime minister (1996–1999) taught him that in order to lead a tough, nationalist political line à la Likud Minister Ze'ev Binyamin Begin, he would have to put on a sheep’s clothing. In his present term in office as prime minister, it was Defense Minister and former leader of the Labor party Ehud Barak who provided Netanyahu with the sheep’s clothing, along with a certification label testifying to its authenticity.
However, now that Barak has crushed the Labor party and subsequently dismantled his splinter party when announcing his intention to retire from politics, Netanyahu is in need of a new sheep. He will apparently offer the vacated position to the Labor party, led by Shelly Yachimovich; to the Hatenua party, led by Tzipi Livni and/or to Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid. If Kadima manages to pass the qualifying electoral threshold, its leader Shaul Mofaz, too, will most likely receive a generous offer.
It stands to reason that none of them will reject the deal proposed by Netanyahu. In the Labor party leadership, they have already started dividing the spoils. Lapid, for his part, rushed to explain that he had not entered politics to sit in the opposition. As to Mofaz, not too long ago, he demonstrated that he found no fault in sitting around the government table between Netanyahu and leader of the Yisrael Beitenu party Avigdor Liberman.
