Tzipi Livni
Photo: Tal Shahar
Livni: Bibi can't please both Obama, settlers
Opposition leader slams government over national priorities plan, budgetary preference for remote settlements
Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni (Kadima) criticized the new national priorities plan presented by the Prime Minister's Office, saying it marked "a political priority plan and not a budgetary one, and one that has nothing to do with actual national priorities."
Wednesday saw the PM's Office present the ministers with the new plan's outline, ahead of future cabinet deliberations on the matter.
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The move, she added, proves that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is not being serious when it speaks of forming a Palestinian state.
"When a government that said it would support the two-state solution decides to set such policies regarding remote places – ones every minister knows we won't be able to keep – it empty its statementsof meaning. You can't please both Obama and the settlers."
The settlements, she continued, are damaging to Israel: "There is a group in Israel whose vision is not a democratic, Jewish state, but one that has sovereignty over greater Israel. This is not my vision and we have to make the right choice for everyone.
"I do not doubt our biblical right to the Land of Israel, but our goal is existing as a Jewish, democratic state and for that we need a Jewish majority.
"We need to make a decision, because if we don't, the price we'll end up paying will be higher than the already high price we'll have to pay for a (peace) deal."
Livni further said that she believes the government's attitude towards the settlers was "dishonest": "The government's unwillingness to tell these people that they are living in a place in which they cannot stay forever, is unfair.
"These people deserve to be told that we can't stay there forever and that we have a vision for a Jewish and democratic state."
