Livni signs up to coalition
Israel took a step closer to political stability this week, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed his first coalition partner.
The recruit was the six-seat Tzipi Livni Party, which campaigned heavily on its determination to restart a peace process with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu announced that the party’s leader Tzipi Livni, will become a “senior partner” in the government on this issue, and she is widely expected to lead negotiations. She will also serve as Justice Minister.
Livni’s statement when announcing the alliance showed a significant change in her philosophy since the 2009 election. She won that poll, returning her then-party Kadima to Knesset as the largest party, but flatly refused to form a unity government or any other kind of alliance with Netanyahu. This time around she said that she has a “strategic and moral” imperative to “become a part of any government that commits to bringing peace.”
Now that he has signed Livni, Netanyahu needs another 24-seats worth of parties for his Knesset majority. However, negotiations with his most attractive partner, election runner up Yesh Atid, appear to be in deadlock.
The party is rebuffing all offers made by Netanyahu, saying that it will not go in with him unless he accepts its proposal for an end to the exemption of Haredim from the army. Netanyahu refuses, preferring his own proposal, which will reduce the scale of the exemption but not end it.
This standoff is also preventing Netanyahu signing the religious-Zionist Jewish Home party, which has an informal agreement with Yesh Atid that they will only enter the coalition as a pair.
Yesh Atid MK Dov Lipman told The AJN: “Nothing’s happening because whatever they offer Yesh Atid or to their credit Jewish Home, we’re are not going for it. [Yesh Atid] believes in these values, we believe that it is time for change whereby the ultra-Orthodox parties are not dictating to everyone what happens in the country.”
Lipman added that the draft proposal is a “red line” issue and Yesh Atid will go in to opposition if it is not accepted. He claimed that this commitment to ideology represents a departure from the Israeli norm where coalition negotiations focus on government jobs for party members over principles. “Any time the word portfolios come up [Yesh Atid negotiators] immediately say we’re not here to discuss portfolios,” he said, adding: “They’re not used to people who are offered this or that portfolio not just caving their values.”
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