Livni's Strategy in Israel

...Livni's ambition is fueled by a sense of urgency about reaching an agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA) before Israel's political situation deteriorates...

...Unlike Golda Meir, Tzipi Livni, 50, has a security background one that includes service as a lieutenant in the Army and her years as a Mossad operative in Europe...

...Subsequent gestures, such as releasing Palestinian prisoners and easing security roadblocks, would be aimed at increasing support for the PA among the Palestinian electorate by showing that it can achieve positive results...

...We have to make a decision, one that goes against all our instincts, against our collective memory, against the prayers of the Jewish people for 2,000 years...

...But she had two stalwarts on whom she could rely—Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Israel's military icon, and Chief of Staff General David Elazar, a strong leader...

...In a schoolboy-like attempt to put Livni in her place, he referred to her publicly as “Tzipporah,” a Biblical name that may indeed be on her birth certificate yet in the context was recognizably supercilious, the opposite in intent of the affectionate diminutive “Tzipi” by which she is known to all...

...After having viewed her political colleagues close up, she feels best qualified for the critical task...

...It is simply to say Mrs...

...As a young Knesset member Olmert voted against Israel's peace agreement with Egypt in defiance of his party leader, Prime Minister Begin...

...Mrs...

...We must clarify for ourselves whether it has a chance...

...The official newspaper Tishrin, mouthpiece of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, provided an almost fawning assessment of the female politician who might assume Israel's helm...

...Her father, Eitan, was a militant operations officer in the Irgun underground led by Menachem Begin before the recreation of Israel...

...Abraham Rabinovich writes frequently for the New Leader on the Middle East...

...that might require a decision on troop movements...

...Moderate Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt would then be asked to endorse the agreement...

...I reached my own conclusion," says Tzipi Livni, "that there is a need to divide the land...

...At a Cabinet meeting, Dayan had briefed his colleagues in a wavering voice as he described a situation in which two massed armies were preparing to attack in hours while the bulk of Israel's Army was still immobilized...

...As mayor of Jerusalem between 1993-2003 he provocatively pushed the construction of housing for Right-wing Jewish settlers in the heart of Arab neighborhoods...

...Defense Minister Barak had been the nastier of the two...

...She knew nothing about military matters and had admitted to General Lior once that she did not know what a division was...

...This opportunity must not be missed" she says...

...Her instinctive response was less than decisive: "Yisrael, what do we do now...

...Meir had never been short on courage...

...Raised in an ideologically centered household where there was no parental hugging but high educational demands, Livni excelled during her Army service, twice being chosen outstanding cadet in officer courses...

...Some political observers speculated that Barak, a former Army chief of staff, could not adjust to the thought ______ that he might have to accept direction on security matters from a female...

...He tried to disparage her credibility as a prime ministerial candidate during the Kadima primary campaign even though he isn’t a member of her party but head of the Labor Party...

...He also wanted a pre-emptive air strike...

...Falling back on common sense and political experience, she had come to the right conclusions...

...There would be no pre-emptive strike...

...Israel might soon need American material and political aid and it was imperative for it to be clear that Israel had not started the war...

...She grew increasingly restive about Olmert's leadership, particularly after he treated her disdainfully at the start of the 2006 Lebanon war when she attempted to seek a diplomatic solution rather than wrest a military victory...

...Dayan refused to authorize either request...

...She would leave the running of the war to Dayan and Elazar, particularly the latter...

...When she arrived at her office Yom Kippur morning, gray-faced at the prospect of heavy casualties, she discovered that Dayan and Elazar disagreed about what should be done...

...Despite the Mossad warning, the defense minister was not convinced war was imminent...

...Minutes before the results were to be announced, however, he declared that he was taking a “time out” from politics and disappeared from view without calling Livni to congratulate her...

...Her subsequent performance should have made it apparent that it is character, not gender, that counts in a crisis...

...She hesitated then made an unequivocal decision...

...Livni, however, chose not to make a career underground as her parents did and returned to Israel to go to law school and marry...

...Mofaz, too, resurfaced and was considering whatever senior ministerial post Livni would deign to offer him...

...Livni, who has made a similar U-turn from her Right-wing roots, may even agree with everything Olmert said...

...The kindest words Livni received after her primary victory came from, of all places, Damascus...

...This vision of a Jewish state coexisting peacefully alongside a Palestinian state between the Mediterranean coast and the Jordan River would have been anathema to Livni's Right-wing parents, who fought for a Jewish state that would stretch from the sea to the river, leaving no room for another sovereignty...

...Meir's Yom Kippur performance clearly demonstrated that women are capable of confronting predawn crises more acute than a crying baby...

...The only rational choice for the nation, he said is giving up the captured territories...

...The bottom line: Israel must relinquish almost all the territory won in the Six-Day War that it still holds, including East Jerusalem...

...Likewise, the world (read Washington) would not accept another pre-emptive strike only six years after Israel had carried one out in the Six-Day War...

...Israel must withdraw from almost all, if not all, of the West Bank...

...I’m not convinced that when it comes to important security issues . . . the foreign minister has what it takes to provide answers,” he said...

...Letting the Public Decide Livni’s Strategy in Israel By Abraham Rabinovich Jerusalem DEALING with two pouting ex-generals—Ehud Barak and Shaul Mofaz— Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni exhibited grace in victory on September 17 when she refrained from gloating over winning the Kadima Party leadership primaries...

...His latest book, The Yom Kippur War, is now available in paperback...

...After almost six weeks of negotiations, Livni was not able to put together a coalition she considered viable...

...Instead of calling to congratulate her when her victory was announced as was expected from the head of a party that is Kadima’s major partner in the ruling coalition, he went off to a highly publicized meeting with the leader of the opposition, Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting he was exploring the establishment of a coalition excluding Kadima...

...For the past year, as foreign minister, Livni has been engaging in talks with the PA...

...As the generals and other advisers debated the issue in her office, Mrs...

...His generous proposal was immediately termed an Israeli commitment by the PA and by Syria, to the chagrin of Livni and Netanyahu...

...He claimed he was a victim of voting irregularities, including miscounts and a polling station kept open after the official closing hour, which may be true...

...As foreign minister and one of the two figures closest to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when he was felled by a stroke three years ago, she avoided a bid for the top post and immediately announced her backing of Olmert as Sharon's successor...

...Mobilization, he said would be widely viewed as an act of war and could provoke the Arabs to attack...

...As for peace with Syria, the price was clear: "Is there any person in Israel who believes that peace with Syria is possible without giving up the Golan...

...She has all the qualities possessed by past Israeli prime ministers from David BenGurion to Ehud Olmert...

...How does one make peace with the Palestinians when there are two polarized Palestines...

...But she was furious at hearing him say it out loud while negotiations launched at Annapolis last year were under way...

...If the moderates win the elections, the PA and Israel would enter the next stage: A strengthened PA would dismantle the militants' infrastructure and Israel would dismantle the settlements, both prodigious tasks...

...Mossad beauty Tzipi Livni is the leading political figure in Israel and the frontrunner to enter the prime minister's club," said an editorial...

...On the eve of Israel's War of Independence in 1948, she crossed into Jordanian territory dressed as an Arab woman in an attempt to persuade King Abdullah to stay out of the fighting...

...Meir realized she would have to decide...

...She lit cigarette after cigarette, filling the room with acrid smoke that made those present squint...

...This does not necessarily mean she would be steadfast in a crisis...

...I wanted to impose Israeli sovereignty over the entire city,' ' said Olmert in an interview with the newspaper//«'aretz...

...No Israeli leader has said this before me...

...A substantial part of the past 3 5 years I was not willing to look at reality in all its depth...

...Meir made another fateful decision that morning, this time under her mandate as grandmother rather than prime minister...

...Whoever lacks understanding in security matters,” said Mofaz, “cannot serve as prime minister...

...If war does break out, better to be in proper shape to deal with it even if it angers the world...

...when she spoke her voice was firm...

...Within 10 days, Barak and his wife accepted a dinner invitation extended by the Livnis and he was discussing the terms under which he would serve in a Livni administration...

...Meir ordered the children taken down immediately...

...They had conveniently failed to recall that the only Israeli leader ever awakened by a predawn call warning of imminent war was a 75-year-old grandmother, Golda Meir...

...The ring, alas, proved harder to get than the centrist Kadima Party's top post...

...Before the voting began, Mofaz said he would remain in the party regardless of who won...

...Dayan wanted the evacuation of children from Golan Heights settlements delayed until late afternoon, just before the expected attack, in the hope that the war threat would dissipate before then...

...The complex course Livni intends to follow reportedly goes like this: Negotiate with the moderate leaders of the PA and arrive at an agreement to establish an interim Palestinian state within temporary borders...

...Livni herself has not always been sure she possessed those qualities...

...Her mother, Sara, was prominent in the organization as well...

...A similar warning the previous spring had proved false...

...A senior Mossad official who served withher, Mirla Gal, praised her "cleverness, coolness, speed of analysis, honesty...

...The talks are partly real, partly virtual, since the PA only controls the West Bank, and barely at that, while Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction, firmly controls the other half of the Palestinian entity, the Gaza Strip...

...Refraining from a pre-emptive attack also ensured vital political and logistic support from Washington in the crucial days ahead...

...Mofaz, a former defense minister and Army chief of staff, adopted the same dismissive tone regarding Livni’s leadership qualities, but that could be viewed as legitimate since he was Livni’s main opponent in the primary campaign...

...OLMERT HAS LEFT his SUCcessor a stunning legacy: his personal political program that spells out publicly what Israel must give up in order to have peace with the Palestinians and Syria...

...Upon being mustered out at 22, she was invited to join the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, and spent most of the next four years in Paris...

...She also was raised in a security-focused home...

...The caller was her military aide, Brigadier General Yisrael Lior, passing on a report from the Mossad that the armies of Egypt and Syria would attack Israel at dusk...

...when the phone rang at Mrs...

...Meir had walked heavily when she entered the room...

...Although the disparaging pre-primary assessments by Barak and Mofaz were directed at Livni, it seemed obvious that both men believed a woman, any woman, should not be asked to pick up a ringing phone at 3 A.M...

...Almost no details about them are known...

...Elazar wanted immediate mobilization of the reserves, who constituted two-thirds of Israel's Army...

...On October 26, she opted for early elections that will probably be held in February...

...With the agreement's legitimacy thus established it would be at the center of new Palestinian elections and offer the Palestinian public for the first time a clear political horizon and promise of statehood...

...In explaining her decision last month to go for the brass ring, she said: "the last three years enabled me to better understand the essence of decisions...

...Even after entering the political arena, she kept her private life to herself...

...Her decision on mobilization saved the Golan Heights that night when reservists, summoned from Yom Kippur prayers in the few hours before war began, stemmed the Syrian tide in fierce tank battles...

...I admit it...

...Her seeming reserve in personal relations is sometimes regarded as aloofness, but close friends say it is more akin to bashfulness...

...If we strike first we won't get help from anybody," she said...

...Livni will face a stiff fight from Netanyahu, who rejected her offer to join her in a government of national unity, and it is far from certain who will prevail...

...If that is successfully accomplished—a monumental uncertainty—a final peace agreement with permanent borders could be put together...

...Only recently has the public learned that she is married to an advertising executive with whom she has two sons...

...Mrs...

...Despite the macho pair’s best efforts to block her, she invited them to sit with her at the political high table...

...Meir's bedside on Yom Kippur morning in 1973...

...When the war began hours earlier than expected with a massive Syrian artillery barrage on all settlements, the children and their mothers were safely away...

...But she agreed with Elazar's demand for immediate mobilization of all reserve combat units...

...She never broke down even when strong men around her quivered...

...It was 4:30 A.M...

...Called upon to make decisions in the coming weeks, she didso sensibly...