Hodgepodge of clichés and good intentions
צילום: איי אף פי
A star is born
NY Times lauds Livni as Golda's successor, but good intentions aren't enough
Tzipi Livni appeared on the cover of this weekend's New York Times magazine. This is indeed a rare honor. The New York Times has already made its choice. Tzipi Livni is their woman, the great white hope, a rising political star.
On the cover page she looks directly at the camera as she wears a determined expression, only her left eyebrow is slightly raised, leaving wrinkles of doubt on the left hand side of her face. Doubt, not irony. Livni in this interview is void of irony. She is serious, full of good intentions, full of integrity. Livni's integrity makes reporter Roger Cohen go out of his way. How full of integrity this 'Zippi', is, how clean, how modest, how energetic. He finds her amazing – and absolutely authentic, like Ariel Sharon, Livni’s political mentor, "the last of the heroic breed of warrior-politicians."
Thanks to this spiritual mentor Livni has undergone a vast change. She has abandoned the vision of a Greater Israel and all she is seeking at this point in time is to promote the idea of a two-state solution. This is the only reason she wants to become prime minister, "I don't like the exposure, the respect and so on," she says.
So why then is she raising an eyebrow? Perhaps because she too senses the gap between the economic prosperity, the military might and the sense that there's a lack of security – just like in America! revels Cohen.
And perhaps the reasons are more prosaic. At the beginning of the article, when Cohen asks Livni if her years at the Mossad "made her a disciplined person," she hesitates. In the US discipline is a compliment; but Livni is not in the US. She is afraid of looking like a nerd. Hence, she calls his hotel later on with a list of "cool" proof: She prefers wearing jeans and not suits. She prefers the Latin Quarter over the Champs-Élysées. When she was young she went to the Sinai and worked as a waitress. She went that far.
Did she succeed in conveying the right image? It appears that Livni is doubtful. But she can lower her brow. It's hard to imagine a more favorable interview. The New York Times has no doubt. Livni is the right woman to step into Golda Meir's shoes.
Hodgepodge of clichés and good intentions
Tzipi Livni is indeed a politician with good intentions. But is this enough? The New York Times reporter is aware of the problems. The editor would not have approved an article that was entirely praise and glorification after all. Hence, for the sake of balance, Cohen goes to the territories and gains some insights: The occupation is bad. Both sides must overcome their mental stagnation.
How? It's not clear. It is worrying to see this worldview presented to the readership of one of the most sophisticated newspapers in the US: It is rife with clichés such as the embellished photograph of the Kalandia checkpoint. The photographer chose a late-night shot. The checkpoint is empty, sterile, squeaky clean like a gas station in the Midwest, or like Livni's photograph in the article that is shrouded in darkness, her eyes directed towards the light which illuminates that same wrinkled left-hand side of her forehead.
Livni's political fiasco (her courageous call for Olmert to step down, and then her remaining in the government with full integrity) has been plastered over. The Kadima party's catastrophic situation is resolved with a shrug. But even worse, in this drawn-out interview Livni provides a hodgepodge of clichés and good intentions.
What has this senior minister done about the settlements, the checkpoints, the daily abuse of Palestinians? What gestures, what diplomatic initiatives has she advanced that could have prevented Hamas from coming to power? What did she do to change the course of the Second Lebanon War? She was full of good intentions.
The problem is that in this world, just as the Americans have discovered in Iraq, good intentions are not enough. Tzipi Livni is sitting on the fence and making honest faces without exacting too heavy a political cost. It photographs well. But it's not enough.
