Israel Matzav

Tzipi Livni: Public image v. incompetent reality

In today's Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick takes apart Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's image of competence and leaves it in shreds. Livni, who has managed to avoid the incompetent image that has been pinned upon Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, could actually lead Kadima Achora to victory, were an election be held today. Glick sets out a wake-up call for reality:

Finally, while Livni mindlessly insists that "everyone knows" the contours of the peace settlement, Israel's experience since the onset of the peace process with the PLO in 1993 has proven incontrovertibly that those contours are wrong.

The Palestinians have repeatedly rejected the vision of two states west of the Jordan River and have repeatedly made clear through their actions and words that they are not interested in having a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, and portions of Jerusalem. As they have clarified repeatedly, they want to destroy the Jewish state. So claiming that the solution is known is to simply deny reality.

Livni forcefully argued that Israel cannot rest on its laurels but must move forward immediately to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. In this vein she supports a massive release of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli jails. In her words, "The world doesn't suffer a vacuum in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When we don't initiate solutions, the world comes with its own solutions."

What she fails to recognize is that the world did not rest on its laurels after Israel made massive concessions on its own initiative to the Palestinians in the past. Rather each Israeli concession was seen as but a starting point for further concessions. Indeed the statement makes one wonder where she has been for the past 13 years.

Livni's argumentation stems from her central misconception that Israel's national security is secured not by the IDF but by opinion polls in Paris and Brussels. She fails to understand not only that this is false, but that Israel's popularity ratings in Europe have little to nothing to do with Israel's actual policies or actions.

Read it all.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:46 PM