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Tzipi Livni ResignationTzipi Livni Resignation, Israel’s former foreign minister and opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, has announced that she is resigning from the country’s parliament, the Knesset. However, Ms Livni said she was not withdrawing from public life and would remain a member of the Kadima party. Her decision comes just over a month after she lost Kadima’s leadership. Ms Livni’s successor as Kadima leader, Shaul Mofaz, had said he wanted her to help the party return to power in early elections widely expected this year. Kadima is currently the biggest party in the Knesset, but recent polls have suggested the number of seats it holds could be halved. Israel ‘at threat’ Outside Israel, Tzipi Livni was one of the country’s best known and most respected politicians – English-speaking, urbane and supportive of international efforts to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. She was credited for not seeking a coalition with ultra-religious parties, even though as leader of the biggest party in the Knesset she could have, theoretically, become prime minister after the 2009 elections. Inside Israel, however, her reputation and standing suffered as her centrist Kadima party failed to effectively challenge the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his distinctively hawkish approach to peace talks. The immediate future of Kadima, which she helped to found, is unclear. Under its new leader, Shaul Mofaz, the party is predicted to do badly in the next elections, which may take place as early as this autumn. In a short statement, as she handed in her resignation from the Knesset, Ms Livni said she never saw politics as an end in itself and suggested that political life in Israel had become cynical and dirty. When asked by a journalist what she intended to do next, she said: “We’ll meet again.” Speaking to reporters before the meeting, she said she was “leaving the Knesset at this point, but I’m not retiring from public life”, adding that Israel was “too dear” to her. (BBC News) |