 |
 |
 |
|
|
Tsipi Livni -- right up there with Osama and Obama
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By israelinsider staff May 4, 2007 |
|
| |
 Bookmark to del.icio.us |
| |
 |
| Livni with VP Dick Cheney (www.whitehouse.gov) |
| |
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni may have been ridiculed for waffling in Israel this week, but she was selected by Time magazine as one of one hundred people who most influence the world. Neither Prime Minister Ehud Olmert nor any other Israeli made the list. US President George W. Bush didn't make the cut either.
Livni is in impressive company, among 21 people defined as "leaders and revolutionaries" -- sharing the limelight with Saudi King Abdullah, Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who wrote the tribute for Time, effusively praised her counterpart, thus ensuring continued obsequiousness in diplomatic encounters by the Israeli, who has had trouble promoting her country's policy positions in her first year on the Job. Rice recalled: "It was late summer in 1999, and I was in Israel. President Bush was still Governor Bush, and I was traveling as his foreign policy adviser. In a meeting with Ariel Sharon, I met one of his advisers -- a confident and impressive woman, roughly my age (well, actually a little younger), named Tzipi Livni.
"Little did I know how intertwined our lives and work would become. Last May, Tzipi, like me, became the second woman ever to hold her nation's top foreign policy job. Those early months were anything but easy: violence in Gaza, a war in Lebanon, a radical President in Iran."
"Tzipi's strength to endure, indeed to excel, in what were difficult, often heartbreaking, conditions was a testament to her character. Tzipi and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert have the foresight to know that a Palestinian state is in Israel's greatest interest, and that they must pursue the cause of peace with their Arab neighbors. President Bush and I deeply share this goal. And for Tzipi and me, it is now the focus of our work together," she wrote.
Livni emerged relatively unscathed from the preliminary Winograd report, primarily because she was not involved in decision-making and thus shared less of the blame. Her lack of influence spared her criticism.
In Israel's leading newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, Livni was this week compared to a rabbit caught in the headlights after she reportedly told PM Olmert that he should resign but then would not resign herself from his government, where she serves not only as Foreign Minister but also Vice Prime Minister. Olmert handled her by warning her that she should think carefully whether she can subvert her boss and still keep her job. For now she is dangling in her job, with Olmert pulling her strings.
At least Time and Rice say she has influence, although in the latter case her prime advantage may be how easily she is influenced.
"Tzipi has not just been my colleague," continues Rice. "She has become my friend. We have sat together for hours debating ideas -- freely, openly, even combatively at times. I have learned of her deep pride in her children. We share an abiding respect for our now deceased fathers?mine, a successful son of the old segregated American South; hers, a defender of the Jewish homeland in its first days of independence."
"Tzipi, 48, is a woman of conviction, intelligence and peace. I deeply respect her. I like being around her. And I know that long after we have both exited the world stage, we'll still be friends."
It will be awfully hard for "Tzipi" to resist the demands of "Condi" after a send-up like that.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
