Jerusalem Post editor David Horowitz recently conducted an interview with Tzipi Livni, leader of Israel’s opposition Kadima party, in which she challenges the current Likud-led coalition’s approach to negotiations with the Palestinians and a number of other issues.
“[T]his is a lousy government,” she states flatly.
Livni comes from a right-nationalist political tradition, and she’s anything but a starry-eyed peacenik. But she recognizes the necessity for Israel of a two-state agreement with the Palestinians and believes Prime Minister Netanyahu is not “prepared to pay the realistic price of an accord that protects our fundamental interests.”
I wish there were a viable leftwing alternative to the current government, but Ehud Barak foolishly led the Labor party into a coalition with Netanyahu after the last election in exchange for appointment as defense minister. And Labor (now a shell of its former self) hasn’t been heard from since, in any meaningful sense.
I don’t know when the next elections will be in Israel, but it certainly wouldn’t displease me to see Livni emerge from them as the next prime minister of Israel.
