February 5, 2009. Copyright 2009, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Tzipi Livni: Israel’s "Ms Clean" rolls up her sleeves
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, February 5, Graphic News:  Her handling of Israel's offensive in Gaza in 2008/09 proved that she too can play tough, but has Foreign Minister and acting Prime Minister Tzipi Livni done enough to persuade voters that she is now ready to take on the top job?

Livni, 50, who last year took over the centrist Kadima party following the resignation of Ehud Olmert amid corruption allegations, is trailing veteran right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu in the race to become prime minister after polls on February 10. Livni has dispelled doubts about her security credentials but the strong support for her rival may indicate that she has yet to earn the people's trust -- never easy in Israel.

The straight-talking Livni, her country's second female foreign minister, has built her career on her reputation for honesty in a murky, macho milieu. She regularly berates the older generation and the corrupt system in which they have flourished, promising a fresh approach to age-old problems. Whether she wins may now hinge on how convinced Israelis are that a fresh approach is what's needed.
 
Livni certainly has credibility: the daughter of Zionist Irgun guerrillas, she followed law school with four years with the famously efficient Mossad secret services. In 1999 she was elected to the Knesset and became an acolyte of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- in 2005 she left Likud to join his new Kadima party. Ministerial portfolios include regional development; justice; housing and construction, and foreign affairs.

Early on in that role she was praised for her dealings with the Palestinians, and her tough stance during the offensive in Gaza surprised some: she drew condemnation from the Arab League for saying there was "no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip". Livni remains committed to the ideal of a smaller, Jewish democracy coexisting with a Palestinian state, but she insists on an end to terror attacks as a precondition for this.

If she becomes prime minister, the famously private Livni will find it harder to stay out of the media spotlight with her advertising executive husband, and their two sons.
/ENDS