by Isi Leibler
Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni’s unprecedented outburst against Prime Minister Netanyahu to an American audience, in my opinion, warrants Kadima calling for her immediate resignation as party leader.
Livni’s eruption was unconscionable. I was amongst those calling on both the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition to set aside their personal and political ambitions and form a unity government to promote the national interest. However Livni’s recent outburst has crossed all red lines and makes this impossible.
In an extensive interview with James Bennett, editor of the influential US journal The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg, a prominent American Jewish journalist, Livni explicitly praised President Obama for pressuring Prime Minister Netanyahu and shamelessly urged the American Administration to intensify pressure on the Israeli government.
She went further and, in a remark she will have cause to regret, even raised the sensitive issue of dual loyalties, a major plank in previous anti-Semitic campaigns.
Livni implied that Prime Minister Netanyahu is creating a situation in which American Jews could be compromised by being obliged to choose sides. The Israeli Opposition Leader said “the Prime Minister, deliberately or not, puts Americans into a very complicated situation… in which they need to choose a side, and they don’t want to be in this situation.” She went on to say “it’s a nightmare because we are actually on the same side…We cannot afford this. This is something new. It forced American Jews to take sides.”
It does not require Livni to tell us that American Jews desperately wish to avoid a confrontation with their President over Israel. It truly is a nightmare for them.
But Livni is essentially saying that Netanyahu should have capitulated on basic security issues and become a vassal of the Obama administration.
Alternatively, she is advising American Jews to bury their heads and not exercise their democratic rights as American citizens to express dissent if they consider that their President is acting shabbily towards Israel.
What makes this even more offensive is that, were Livni occupying the role of Prime Minister, with possibly minor nuances, she too would be obliged to resist the heavy handed one-sided pressures being imposed on the Jewish state by President Obama. Indeed, setting aside the right and left wing extremes of both Likud and Kadima, there is in reality no ideological differences of substance separating them.
Tzipi Livni told The Atlantic that she retains the revisionist values and traditions of her parents who were staunch disciples of Menahem Begin.
Prior to 1967 Begin and his party were regarded with contempt by the Mapai labor establishment which brutally discriminated against them and treated them like pariahs.
Yet when abroad and asked about government policies from Jews and non-Jews alike, Begin had a standard answer. “I am a loyal Israeli and currently leader of the opposition. When I travel abroad I will never condemn the policies of my government. Our political differences will be fought out in Israel and determined at elections by the Israeli people.”
To his credit, Netanyahu in opposition, particularly during the Lebanon war and Gaza conflict, offered his services to the government making a major contribution towards presenting the case of Israel to the world.
Today we stand at the crossroads. We face genuine existential threats as our neighbors arm themselves with the most lethal weapons which they direct at our major population centers. Our Arab neighbors are engulfed in civil disorders which are leading to a strengthening of Islamic fundamentalist elements, even threatening our long standing peace treaty with Egypt. And in addition we have a US president who has gone out of his way to appease our enemies whilst exerting maximum pressure on us.
Surely this is a time for politicians to set aside their grubby partisan political and personal interests and unite in the interest of the nation.
People power is being expressed in the streets to pressure our politicians to pay greater attention to social welfare and needs of society and may hopefully ultimately succeed in positive results. But similar public outrage should be directed against politicians like Tzipi Livni who ignore the looming threats to our existence and carry on with her personal agenda.
If we had a more responsible electoral system in which we could reward and punish our representatives, politicians would not dare to behave in such a despicable manner.
ileibler@netvision.net.il
It’s important to stay on-point here, Andrew.
Remember, the line of discussion was not whether an action 9or even a collection of same) was wise or good or acceptable, etc.
The line of discussion originated in my response to Tzipi Livni’s comment that she retains her parents’ “revisionist values.”
From there the direction was toward whether Bibi (et al.) retains his parents’ values.
Not whether his actions are proper.
@dweller –
He is eligible for parole with good behaviour. Have we seen any good behaviour?
Nu, and He actually TOLD you this, ken ayin hara?
@dweller –
When Bibi gave away Hebron, the Jury came in with a verdict of guilty on all counts. The Judge then pronounced a life sentence.
I think the jury is still out on BB, Yamit.
Maybe not in your perception, I realize this.
However, for the sake of his widowed, centenarian father, BenZion Netanyahu (who, I assume, is still with us, God-willing), I’m keeping an open mind in the matter.
The elder Netanyahu, who turned 101 last March (former secretary to Jabotinsky for the latter’s final years), was asked by Ma’ariv whether he thought he had any influence on his son’s political actions. His reply:
“A: I have a general idea. Bibi might aim for the same goals as mine, but he keeps to himself the ways to achieve them, because if he expressed them, he would expose his goals.”
“Q: Is that what you wish?”
“A: No, I just believe that it could be so. Because he is smart. Because he is very careful. Because he has his ways to handle himself. I am talking about tactics regarding the revealing of theories that people with different ideology might not accept. That’s why he doesn’t expose them: because of the reaction from his enemies as well as from the people whose support he seeks. It’s an assumption, but it might be so.”
Andrew Said:
Bird Brain Livni is running her mouth to get the Obamanable Muslime to finance her next campaign against her fellow travler Netanyahu and will sacrifice Israel to get into power.
@ Stanley J. revich:
Stanley J. revich Said:
People are stupid!! It’s not Tzipi, BB , Shimon.etc. They all stink and all get selected and elected as leaders and representative of the Citzenry of Israel. America has chosen Obama and Bush, Clinton and Bush on and on.. people actually believe in their past choices and believe them all to have been good choices….. That’s stupid. All representative democracies cater and pander to the lowest common denominator and if you look around objectivly you will find that the bar is set very low. Yet people believe this is the best there is.
That’s stupid. I never overestimate the common sense and intelligence of the masses, so I am almost never surprised or disappointed.
Let Tzipi “birdbrain” Livni carry on. By the end of the year she will have reduced Kadima to complete irrelevance. People are not stupid and will see her for the opportunistic b….h that she is. The only group that is probably happy with her is Labour.
We have just suffered through the 9th of Av, mourning the double destructions of Israel as an independent nation. But the roots of those destructions are in the sin of the spies.
It is brought that when the tribal princes entered Israel they all reached a level of prophesy. Each one saw that as soon as they entered the Land of Israel they would be replaced by better and more qualified people. Rather than give up their position, privileges and honor, they twisted the reality of Israel to discourage the people from entering.
When the the masses heard the disparaging report of the spies, they wept. It was the 9th of Av that they wept.
On High it was decreed that because we wept for no reason on that day, in the future we would have a real reason to weep. It was the people falling for the twisted words of their treacherous leaders that brought on the 40 years of wandering and set the 9th of Av as a day of mourning. Let us not make the same mistake today.
Aryeh Zelasko
Beit Shemesh
@yamit82 –
“You forgot to mention Papa Shimon (Peres) the most dangerous and treasonous of any Israeli politician past, present and probably future. And he’s still there and still at it.”
I thought he was President and all they do is cut ribbons and open flower shows.
@ LT COL HOWARD:
LT COL HOWARD Said:
You forgot to mention Papa Shimon (Peres) the most dangerous and treasonous of any Israeli politician past, present and probably future. And he’s still there and still at it.
@yamit82 – I should have said that Livini is currently ( & in the future capable of )doing more harm than Beilin. Currently Beilin is discredited. On the other hand,Livini is actively roaming the international Halls of power and actively undercutting the current government.
Was she really a member of Mossad? Seems hard to believe.
@ dweller:
dweller Said:
Does BB?
Uzi Landau and Eldad come as close as you will find retaining the parents revisionist values in any of the current Israeli menagerie we call politicians.
@ yamit82:
Worse yet is the likelihood that Obama’s goal is the same.
@ LT COL HOWARD:
LT COL HOWARD Said:
How?
A very astute observation.
Ted asked me to post on Livini (based on close observations). This is a edited version of my comment:
I have observed the tremendous damage that Livini has caused. During the White House/state/defense discussions she went back channel to aggressively urge the US give Israel the maximum “tough love”. She served as the “beard” that allowed the very openly hostile advisors to have Jewish/Israeli cover. Her actions were despicable. if she were an American doing the same thing in a foreign capital abroad I would call it “treason”. I believe the she guided by raw ambition
I have observed Yossi Beilin close up. While he is very harmful and certainly smug and arrogant Livini has done Israel more harm than he has.
Based on my interaction with the Palestinians, etc. I firmly believe that their goal is not to achieve a Palestinian state but rather (unchanged) to destroy Israel.
Obviously Dippy Tzipi is at it again.
FYI:
And Tzipora Livni “retains the revisionist values of her parents”?
On what planet?
livni just shot herself in the foot. Too bad she missed the head. That would have brought an end to her evil spirit, and lunacy.
I also just heard on the radio that 75% of Americans think the country’s policies are headed in the wrong direction.
The daily gallup poll shows Obama’s approval rating at 41% and disapproval rating at 51%.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/113980/gallup-daily-obama-job-approval.aspx
@ Ed Katz:
Ed Katz Said:
After rereading my comment I have to ask where I said or inferred that I prefer the Black Plague over anyone? I may have a personal preference but I haven’t stated it since the last elections.
Hate? I would call it despise, all of our current so called leaders both here and in every other country. My litmus test is first and foremost is always the question , IS IT GOOD FOR THE JEWS? IS IT GOOD FOR ISRAEL? I hate Jew haters and those who want to kill me. I hate leaders who by their policies aid and abet those who want to kill me. I despise all religions that are not compatible with the first Jewish imperative. I see Christianity as a lethal weapon against Jews and Judaism, no less than Islam. I believe though in live and let live. Since we don’t inject ourselves into their world, beliefs and values I expect reciprocity. We don’t need no special relationship, normal is good enough and we don’t need any freebee aid, we can pay for what we buy and if America does not want to sell to us we can either buy from another source or make it ourselves. We always have options and many options I believe are better for us than what we now have.
Tzipi Livni is good for the Jews (and so is Hamas):
Consider the Palestinian Authority if there were no Hamas: Obama, the EU, and the western liberals would be fawning over Abbas and Salam Fayyad with no constraints, and demanding that since Abbas and Fayyad are so “righteous and reasonable” that the dirty jew-nazi Netanyahu surrender to him immediately. Happily, because of the presence of Hamas, the 800 pound gorilla, even Obama cannot do this. So in a sense, Hamas helps Netanyahu stay in power.
The situation with Tzipi Livni is similar. Livni started out as center-right, and has now moved so far left that she has become far left, and is indistinguishable from Meretz and the arabs.
As she moved ever leftward, she took all the center-leftists along with her. And in so doing, she has destroyed any reasonable leftist opposition to Netanyahu.
That’s why Netanyahu’s coalition is the most stable Israel has seen in decades: it lacks any credible opposition, and any reasonable alternative. Livni doesn’t even have any policies of her own. In a knee-jerk manner, she takes whatever Netanyahu says or does, and assumes the exact opposite position. (Ironically, Tzipi is a Hebrew nickname which means “little birdbrain”.)
It’s almost as if HaShem is giving Jewish Israel a little breathing room, and a chance to increase its survival, by providing Netanyahu with the examples of Obama, Hamas, and Livni to show the real Jews what the current alternatives to him are.
How does Livni even have any standing? It’s a phenomenon called “MILF politics”. MILF is slang for a sexy older woman. Certain sexy older women seem capable of enchanting the masses by their looks, whether they have any substance or not. Livni is one of them, as are Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman. (Bill Clinton was a male counterpart.)
Yamit, you are an intelligent person who carrys a tremendous amout of hate; however, you stepped over the red line by stating that you preferred Obama, the Jew hater, in the coming election. Any respect that I had for you dissappeared. Maybe you should change from a Kippa to a Muslim head cover.
@ Laura:
Laura Said:
Should read even some Christians. Latest poll I saw on Fox was Obama can still beat any generic Republican and that his job approval was 47%. More would rather see him re-elected than not. Considering the economy that’s not too bad and gives him at this point better than even money to be re-elected. Considering that over 50% of Americans pay no Federal income tax, it can be a safe bet that the majority of these would be in favor of wealth distribution and solidly in Obama’s camp. If the Republicans are perceived to be threatening the big three Medicaid, SS, and Medicare, Obama will win going away. 48 million Americans are now collecting food Stamps and the number can climb to 60 million by election time.
Unless something develops with Iran, Israel will not be even a blip on voters decisions in voting 2012, not even to most Jews in America. Perceived individual self interests will determine the Next POTUS.
@ BlandOatmeal:
BlandOatmeal Said:
She does what she is told.
There is no dilemma for American Jews. Even American Christians are backing Israel over Obama.
Does Livni mean people will actually have to CHOOSE right or wrong? Perhaps she ought to choose herself; and either be loyal to Israel or move to Gaza.