Livni Becomes Israel’s Second Most Powerful Politician, Joins Cabinet

JERUSALEM – A rising star of Israeli politics, Tzipi Livni, was named foreign minister and vice premier yesterday in the incoming Israeli government – the second most powerful player on the country’s male-dominated political scene.Ms. Livni, part of the newly named Cabinet, has traveled a long ideological road from daughter of a Zionist underground fighter to champion of Israel’s withdrawal from much of the West Bank.Incoming Prime Minister Olmert’s plan to draw Israel’s borders in the next four years, with or without a peace accord with the Palestinian Arabs, is the political centerpiece of his new coalition. It would mean evacuating tens of thousands of Jewish settlers, completing the separation barrier along the West Bank and withdrawing from the areas on the “Palestinian” side of the barrier – setting a de facto border.However, in stitching together a majority team, he had to scrap his pledge to include only parties that back the plan.Mr. Olmert’s Kadima Party won 29 seats of the 120 in the parliament, the most among the parties but far fewer than the 61 he needs to govern. Two natural partners – the seven-seat Pensioners Party and the moderate Labor with 19, took the count only to 55.That left ultra-Orthodox Shas in the position to dictate its terms in exchange for its 12 seats, and it refused to back the West Bank redeployment. However, Mr. Olmert can count on the leftist Meretz Party and Arab Israeli parties to provide a solid parliamentary majority in favor of the pullout.The new Cabinet lineup, which Mr. Olmert presented yesterday, is expected to take office Thursday, with the government starting its term with 67 seats.Mr. Olmert is a relatively new face in the top job, replacing a legendary soldier and politician, Ariel Sharon, who suffered a massive stroke January 4 and is still in a coma.The Labor Party leader, Amir Peretz, takes over as defense minister, a top post in his first Cabinet appointment – drawing fire because his experience is in social issues, not security. However, the Moroccan-born politician has a reputation as a take-charge manager, and his appointment could help ease Israel’s rapidly deteriorating relationship with the Palestinian Arabs following the recent takeover of the Palestinian Authority by Hamas terrorists.A second key job goes to another first-timer and an ally of Mr. Olmert, Avraham Hirchson, who is to become finance minister.Of all the new ministers, Ms. Livni is most in the spotlight. She is a rare female power figure in a country heavy with macho military role models, though Israel did have a woman as prime minister early on – Golda Meir, who served from 1969-74.In just seven years, Ms. Livni, now 47, a lawyer and former Mossad spy agency recruit, has risen from relative obscurity to Israel’s second-most powerful politician, earning a reputation as a pragmatic straight-talker.Both Mr. Olmert and Ms. Livni are scions of what Israelis like to call the Likud “royalty” – the leading families of the hawkish Israeli party that dominated Israeli politics for the better part of three decades. And both broke with that party after concluding that the reality of living alongside and among a fast-growing Palestinian Arab population meant giving up some of the dream of a Greater Israel that stretched across both banks of the Jordan River.The stylish Ms. Livni slid seamlessly into the Foreign Ministry in the shakeup that followed Mr. Sharon’s November exit from the hawkish Likud and the creation of Kadima.Ms. Livni, who followed Mr. Sharon into Kadima from Likud, abandoned Likud’s decades-long opposition to withdrawing from territory and became a main proponent of Mr. Olmert’s plan to abandon much of the West Bank.“We will lead in the direction of two states” – one for Israel, one for Palestinian Arabs, she said, as Kadima’s election campaign kicked off in November.

Livni Becomes Israel’s Second Most Powerful Politician, Joins Cabinet

Livni Becomes Israel’s Second Most Powerful Politician, Joins Cabinet

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