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Tzipi Livni
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Tzipora Malka "Tzipi" Livni (born 5 July, 1958) is an Israeli politician and the current leader of Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset. She currently serves as the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs.
in Tel Aviv, Livni is the daughter of Eitan Livni (born in Poland) and Sara Rosenberg, both prominent former Irgun members. Her father served as the chief operations officer of the Irgun and later, 1974-1984, a Likud member of the Knesset.
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Tzipora Malka "Tzipi" Livni (born 5 July, 1958) is an Israeli politician and the current leader of Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset. She currently serves as the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Biography
Born in Tel Aviv, Livni is the daughter of Eitan Livni (born in Poland) and Sara Rosenberg, both prominent former Irgun members. Her father served as the chief operations officer of the Irgun and later, 1974-1984, a Likud member of the Knesset. Tzipi Livni served as a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces. According to an interview in Yediot Aharonot, described in The Sunday Times, she served in the elite Mossad unit responsible for Operation Wrath of God (also known as Bayonet). in the 1980s. She resigned in August 1983 to marry and finish her law studies. A graduate of Bar Ilan University's Faculty of Law, she has practiced public and commercial law for 10 years. Livni resides in Tel Aviv; she is married to advertising executive Naftali Spitzer and has two children, Omri and Yuval. Livni has been a vegetarian since the age of 12. Besides her native tongue, Hebrew, Livni also speaks English and French.
Political career
Early career
Livni entered politics in 1996 when she tried to win a spot on Likud's list to the Knesset. She was not elected to the knesset, but was appointed as head of the government-owned corporations authority in Netanyahu's government and oversaw the privatization of a number of companies. Livni was first elected to the Knesset as a member of the Likud party in 1999. When Likud leader Ariel Sharon became prime minister in July 2001, Livni was appointed Minister of Regional Cooperation, and thereafter held various Cabinet positions including Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Minister of Immigrant Absorption and Minister of Housing and Construction. She received the Abirat Ha-Shilton ("Quality of Governance") award for 2004. On 1 October, 2005, she was appointed Minister of Justice after several months acting in that position.
In Sharon's Cabinet, Livni was an avid supporter of the prime minister's disengagement plan and was generally considered to be among the key dovish or moderate members of the Likud party. She often mediated between various elements inside the party, and made efforts to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including successful efforts to have the pullout from the Gaza Strip ratified by the Knesset. On 12 November, 2005, she spoke at the official yearly commemoration of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.
Joining Kadima
On 20 November, 2005, Livni followed Sharon and Ehud Olmert into the new Kadima Party. Ahead of the 28 March elections Livni was appointed to be the new Foreign Minister, while continuing to serve as Justice Minister, as a result of the mass resignation of Likud Party members from the government.
In the selection of candidates for the March 2006 Knesset election, Livni was awarded the number three position on Kadima's list of candidates, which effectively guaranteed her election to the Knesset.
On 4 May, 2006, with the swearing-in of the 31st Government, Livni became Vice (or Deputy) Prime Minister and retained the position of Foreign Minister. She ceased serving as Justice Minister at that time, but again held that position from 29 November, 2006 to 7 February, 2007, while still serving in her primary role of Foreign Minister.
After the March 2006 Knesset election, Livni was described as "the second most powerful politician in Israel". Livni is the second woman in Israel to hold the post of foreign minister, after Golda Meir. In 2007, she was included in the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World. Forbes ranked her the 40th most powerful woman in the world in 2006, 39th in 2007, and 52nd in 2008.
Livni became the first Israeli cabinet minister to explicitly differentiate Palestinian guerrilla attacks against Israeli military targets from terrorist attacks against civilians. In an interview on the US television news show Nightline, recorded on 28 March, 2006, Livni stated, "Somebody who is fighting against Israeli soldiers is an enemy and we will fight back, but I believe that this is not under the definition of terrorism, if the target is a soldier."
In 2007, she met with Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, to discuss "improving the lives of the Palestinian people, without compromising Israel's security."
On 2 May, 2007, Livni called for Olmert's resignation in the wake of the publication of the Winograd Commission's interim report. She offered herself as leader of Kadima if Olmert decided to step down and asserted her confidence in her ability to defeat him in a party election should he decline. However, her call was ignored by Olmert and her decision to stay in the Cabinet sparked some controversy.
Kadima leadership and Prime Minister-designation
In the Kadima leadership election held on 17 September, 2008, Olmert decided not to stand for re-election as party leader and stated he would resign as Prime Minister following the election. Livni and Shaul Mofaz emerged as the main rivals for the leadership.
Livni won the Kadima leadership election by a margin of just 431 votes (1%).
Upon declaring victory in the leadership election, Livni said the, "national responsibility (bestowed) by the public brings me to approach this job with great reverence."
On 21 September, 2008, Olmert formally resigned his office in a letter submitted to President Shimon Peres, and the following day Peres formally asked Livni to form a new government. Livni faced tough negotiations with Kadima's coalition partners, particularly the Shas party, which had set conditions for joining a Livni government. Likud, the main opposition party, lobbyied Shas and other parties seeking to bring about that result.
2009 elections
In February 2009 Israel held elections for the national parliament, the Knesset. Livni, foreign minister and head of the Kadima party, campaigned against Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud party to lead the new government. While election results gave Kadima the most seats in the Knesset, parties to the right in Israel's political spectrum gained enough seats that a coalition government under Kadima leadership was unlikely. As a result, Israeli president Shimon Peres asked Netanyahu and Likud (which received one less seat than Kadima in the elections) to form a government; this is the first time in Israel's history that the party with the most seats was not asked to govern.
Although it expressed some doubts, the influential Haaretz newspaper endorsed Livni for prime minister.
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