Israel: Tzipi Livni Unveils Her New Political Party
Israel’s former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, publicly unveiled her new political party, “The Movement”, on Tuesday.
The recently-formed group will contest seats for the Knesset in Israel’s upcoming elections, to be held in January. She has said she will campaign on a platform of peace negotiations with Palestinians.
Livni served as foreign minister from 2006 – 2009 and resigned from parliament in May of this year after losing the leadership battle of the center-liberal party, Kadima.
After standing down, Livni said that she was not leaving “public life” as Israel was “too dear” to her.
Despite her resignation, she has remained a vociferous critic of the government’s actions, saying Israel has not pushed a peace agreement with Palestinians hard enough.
At a press conference held in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, she referred to recent, indirect talks that halted the Israeli offensive on Gaza. Livni said, “the government enters dialogue with those who support terror and avoids the camp that has prevented terror, that fights for two states.”
The elections will be held on January 22, after a failure to agree on a budget plan led to current prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to call for early elections, originally scheduled for October 2013.
