Tzipi Livni’s hesitation may account for her plummeting status

By Rabbi Dow Marmur

JERUSALEM–An estate agent told me the other day that many sellers miss opportunities because they don’t accept an early offer which is near enough to the asking price in the hope of getting more by hanging on. In most cases, more doesn’t happen and in the end the property is sold for much less than originally expected.

 I thought of my informant when I read about the recent reported encounters between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the Leader of the Opposition in the Knesset, Tzipi Livni. 

 After the elections early in 2009 it became obvious that Livni wouldn’t be able to form a government, even though her Kadima party had one more seat than Netanyahu’s Likud. In order to create a broad coalition, Netanyahu invited Livni and her party to join him, not in a commanding position but with considerable influence. She refused by arguing that, having one more seat, she wasn’t prepared to play second fiddle.

 Since then Netanyahu has shown himself to be a skilled operator who gradually and realistically has moved government foreign policy to the centre while keeping the more extreme right-wing coalition parties in check. Livni, on the other hand, has had to contend with a lot of internal strife, mainly because of the machinations of her deputy Shaul Mofaz, who wants her job as well as a seat in the government (which would make him the third former Chief of Staff in the cabinet, beside Barak and Ya’alon).

 In the meantime, Netanyahu and his team were exploiting the tensions in Kadima by seemingly successfully trying to lure some of its Knesset members back to Likud (from whence many of them originally came) by offering them government positions above their station. The matter came to a head earlier this week. In order to keep her party together, she may now agree to join the government and get a very subordinate role (minister without portfolio). Hence the allusion to my encounter with the estate agent.

 The only alternative open to Livni, as suggested by several pundits, is to call a party convention and have an election for the Kadima leader. If she wins, she’ll probably be able to keep the party together and stay in opposition awaiting the Netanyahu government to stumble or worse. More likely, however, she’d lose and Mofaz will become leader – and take his party into the government.

 I’m among those who believe that this may be a good thing for at least two reasons: (a) I’ve never thought of Livni as a great politician and her tenure in opposition hasn’t made me change my mind; (b) Kadima joining the government will make the Prime Minister less dependant on the right wing and thus more able to pursue the pragmatic politics that the situation and President Obama demand.

 Kadima may even find a face-saver, and thus help to deal with the settlers and the aftershock from the outcome of the Gilad Shalit negotiations. Livni insisted that she’d only join if the Prime Minister accepted a two-state solution. He has. (Now it’s Abu Mazen who’s the awkward one, which, of course, is in Israel’s diplomatic interest, because whatever each side says, it doubtful whether either wants a two-state solution. But that’s for another time.) It could be used as an excuse for accepting the lesser price.

 Israeli politics could do with a Christmas break, but Christmas doesn’t figure in this culture. So while much of the rest of the political world hibernates for the next week or so, Israel will be at it full steam with Tzipi Livni having the lion’s share of tsores.

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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto.  He now divides his time between Canada and Israel