• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

The Challenges Ahead for Livni

Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewee: Martin S. Indyk, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

September 19, 2008

Kadima party elected the country's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, to be its new leader. Martin S. Indyk, who served two separate tours as U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, says Livni will try to put together a coalition government to avoid an early election. He adds that she will seek to step up negotiations with the Palestinians based on a trade off-a separate Palestinian state in return for Palestinians dropping their demand for a "right of return" to Israel.

Tzipi Livni won Kadima's leadership elections by a very narrow margin. What is the likelihood of Ms. Livni pulling together a coalition?

It's very hard to tell because it depends not so much on her desire to form a government, but rather on the calculations of the potential coalition partners. She started out talking to the Shas leadership, which is made up primarily of Sephardic Jews largely from the Middle East and Central Asia, which is a critical member of the coalition, with twelve seats. They have some very clear demands. One is to reinstate child allowances which had been eliminated by this government. This has a direct impact on their community of religious Jews who have large families and depends on government handouts. They also want an assurance that [the final status of] Jerusalem will not be dealt with in negotiations with the Palestinians.

Can she agree to those conditions?

It's not going to be easy for her to agree to either condition. She has presented herself as a clean candidate and I don't think she wants to have her hands soiled by making these crude deals to get Shas participation. As far as Jerusalem is concerned, Jerusalem is an issue that is already on the table and is being negotiated.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.