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Is Tzipi Livni Lying Now Or Was She Lying Ten Years Ago?

After parties to his right brought his government down, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was forced to call for early elections in 1999.

A noteworthy newcomer then among the Likud's Knesset candidates was Tzipi Livni. Livni campaigned for Netanyahu, calling for his re-election.

Livni did not, at that time, describe the preceding three years during which Netanyahu led Israel as "terrible." Nor did she question his "decision-making ability."

Yet in last Friday's Haaretz, Livni had the following to say about Netanyahu's tenure:

When Netanyahu speaks, people remember who he is, what he is. They remember his very problematic activity. His decision-making ability, an ability that is in doubt, if it exists at all. Have we forgotten what went on here when Netanyahu was prime minister? It was terrible. Do we want to go back to that?

Livni's present description of Netanyahu's term as "terrible" and her attack on his "decision-making ability" leads to the question of why she so avidly supported him in 1999, calling on Israelis to keep him as prime minister.

It'd be one thing for Livni to say that she used to share Netanyahu's political views, but now circumstances have changed and she's changed her mind. It is absolutely appropriate for her to make cogent policy arguments for why Israel should elect her as prime minister, and not Netanyahu.

Alas, Livni doesn't offer any cogent policy arguments. She was for the Lebanon War and also against it. She rejects Ehud Olmert's proposed concessions but won't rule out making similar concessions. She might be okay with giving Syria the Golan, but wants to find out if Syria is serious about peace. In the meantime, on some days she supports negotiations with Syria, while on other days rules out talks.

So Livni must resort to providing red meat in the form of personal attacks to the Netanyahu-hating media. Which never bothers to ask why, if Netanyahu's tenure was "terrible" and demonstrated that his "decision-making ability" may not "exist at all," Tzipi Livni ran on the 1999 Likud Knesset list he headed.
posted on 12/10/2008