Tzipi Livni

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Tzipi Livni with U.S. President George W. Bush at the White House, September 13, 2006

Tzipora (Tzipi) Livni (Hebrew: ציפי לבני) (born Tel Aviv, July 5, 1958) is Foreign Affairs Minister and Vice Prime Minister of the state of Israel. Since 29 November 2006, she also holds the dossier of Justice Minister.

According to some official sources her new additional title is "Acting Prime Minister"¹, indicating she would lead the government on an "acting" basis if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were unable to fulfill his duties.

Following the March 2006 Knesset election and the subsequent negotations for formation of Israel's 31st Government, some observers believed that Livni had emerged as "the second most powerful politician in Israel," after Olmert.²

First elected to the Knesset as a member of the Likud party in 1999, she followed then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Olmert into the new Kadima Party in late 2005. At that time she was Minister of Justice, but soon added the position of Foreign Minister following the departure of the remaining Likud ministers from the government in January 2006.

Livni is Israeli's second-ever female foreign minister, the first being Golda Meir several decades prior. Highly-rated by both right and centrist Israelis, Livni received the Abirat Ha-Shilton ("Quality of Governance") award for 2004.

1 Biography
2 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
3 References
4 Footnotes

[edit] Biography

Vice President Dick Cheney of the United States meets with Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni of Israel at the White House.

Livni was born in Tel Aviv. She is the daughter of Eitan Livni, a Polish-born former Irgun member who was at one time a Likud member of the Knesset. She served as a lieutenant in the Israel Defense Forces and worked for the Mossad for four years during the early 1980s. A graduate of Bar Ilan University's Faculty of Law, she has years of experience as a lawyer, specializing in public and commercial law.

Following her election to the Knesset in 1999, she served as a member of the Likud opposition. When Sharon became prime minister in July 2001, Livni was appointed Minister of Regional Cooperation, and thereafter held various positions including Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Minister of Immigrant Absorption and Minister of Housing and Construction. On 1 October 2005 she was appointed Minister of Justice after several months acting in that position.³

Livni was an avid supporter of Sharon's disengagement plan and was generally considered to be among the key dovish members of the Likud party. She often mediated between hawkish and dovish elements inside the party, and gained publicity for her successful efforts to have the pullout from the Gaza Strip ratified by the Knesset.

On 12 November 2005, she became the first member of the Israeli right-wing to speak at the official yearly commemoration of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. Eight days later, Livni joined Sharon's new party, Kadima. She was granted the number three position on Kadima's list of candidates, which effectively guaranteed her election to the Knesset.

As Sharon's medical problems worsened, there was speculation that she might succeed him as head of Kadima if he became unable to continue, although some questioned if she had sufficient experience for the position of Prime Minister. However, Livni quickly expressed her support of Ehud Olmert as acting Prime Minister and leader of Kadima.

In January 2006, following Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom's decision to resign his position ahead of the 28 March elections, Olmert appointed her Foreign Minister. She continued to also serve as Justice Minister through the March 2006 elections for the 17th Knesset. On 4 May 2006, with the swearing-in of the 31st Government, she ceased serving as Justice Minister and added the new title of Vice Prime Minister. She continues to serve as Foreign Minister.

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 ABC 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."

Livni resides in Tel Aviv. She is married and has two children. She is considered to be one of the most popular politicians in Israel, respected by most parties.

Her popularity also soared during the Israel-Hezbollah crisis. She was the face of Israel while the military and her leader were busy conducting and directing the war.

[edit] 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

August 13: Livni said that U.N. resolution 1701 is "good for Israel" and "will change the rules of the game in Lebanon and the relationship between Israel and Lebanon as well." Israel has made clear it will not immediately pull out, but will wait until other forces arrive to prevent the Hezbollah militia from again taking over the area on Israel's northern border. "We ask that there not be a vacuum, in other words that there not be a situation in which the IDF exits and there remains a vacuum there and the Hezbollah returns to those places where it left, or alternately remains in those places and nothing actually happens," Livni told.^[1]

See also: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701

August 16: Kofi Annan met with Livni, who said she discussed Israel's desire for a mixed force of troops from European and Muslim nations. She said Israel fully supports the U.N.-brokered cease-fire with Hezbollah and that the "ball is now in the court of the government of Lebanon" to ensure no armed militias operate in southern Lebanon.^[2]

See also: Timeline of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

August 22: Massimo D'Alema met with Livni in Rome on August 24 to discuss the peacekeeping effort. The dangers of the mission for Italian troops have sparked warnings from the center-right opposition that it could prove a "kamikaze" mission, with the peacekeepers sandwiched between Israel and the well-armed Hezbollah.^[3]

August 23: Livni called the situation in Lebanon "explosive" and pressed the international community to work quickly to deploy peacekeeping troops, the Associated Press reported.^[4]

August 24: Mr. Massimo D'Alema pledged Italy’s willingness to enforce the United Nations resolution on Lebanon and urged other European Union member states to do the same because the stability of the Middle East should be a chief concern for Europeans. “We are convinced that this could represent a change for the entire region,” said Mr. D’Alema at a joint press conference in Rome with the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. Ms. Livni said there “is a window of opportunity for a new era in Lebanon and a chance to change the rules of the game.” She said that the “interests of Lebanon and Israel are the same as that of the international community.”^[5]