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Guest Column
Editorial
The Prime Minister
That Never Was
Israel Must Punish
Price Tag Attacks
T
here is no question that the world
needs a more stable Middle East.
However painful it may be to admit,
the road to Middle East peace begins with
a two-state solution, which establishes a
Palestinian state adjacent to an Israel that is
recognized by the Palestinians as a Jewish
state. The notion of a two-state solution is
extremely controversial, but many in the
international community also support the
goal, not the least of which includes Israel's
minister of justice, Tzipi Livni.
Livni has been a prominent figure in
Israeli politics for almost two decades,
occupying many high-level posts such as
minister of immigration, minister of foreign
affairs, opposition leader, deputy prime min-
ister as well as her current role leading the
Ministry of Justice.
After a successful career practicing law,
Livni served as a Member of the Knesset for
Likud, Israel's major conservative party. In
2005, however, Livni was one of the first pol-
iticians to join Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
newly established party, Kadima, which has
become Israel's major center-left party.
Along with her duties as minister of jus-
tice, Livni was appointed last year by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to
serve as Israel's chief negotiator
in the most recent round of peace
talks alongside U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry and Palestinian
negotiator Saeb Erekat.
Livni was undoubtedly the most
influential figure in the negotia-
tions and remains the most promi-
nent and vocal Israeli politician to
advocate for a two-state solution.
Indeed, she has long exhibited a
zeal — unique among Israeli poli-
ticians — for achieving a sustain-
able peace between Israel and a
future Palestine; during her successful 2008
campaign for the leadership of Kadima, she
ran on a platform espousing almost exclu-
sively a promise to make her No. 1 priority
to establish a mutual and lasting peace with
the Palestinians.
After Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert became
embroiled in a corrup-
tion investigation, he
announced he would not
seek re-election to Kadima
leadership in the 2008
party elections and would
resign from his post.
Ehud Olmert
Livni ran successfully for
the party leadership and,
thereby, became prime minister-designate
of Israel. There was no jubilant celebration
at her campaign headquarters in Netanya,
Tzipi Livni
remains
the most
prominent
and vocal
Israeli
politician to advocate
for a two-state solution.
however; she still had one large mountain to
climb before she could be prime minister:
She had to form a government.
Parliamentary Rule
Because of the nature of parliamentary
systems, in Israeli elections, citizens cast
their votes for political parties rather than
individual political candidates. After the
results are announced, the presi-
dent formally asks the leader
of the winning party to form a
coalition government. Coalition
governments are, by nature,
extremely fragile as they require
the winning party to obtain
enough supporters from other
parties (often with vastly polar-
ized ideologies) to form a major-
ity in the Knesset.
Unfortunately, after six weeks
of brutal and increasingly fruit-
less negotiations with other
parties in the Knesset, it was
clear that Livni had not been able to form a
coalition as the political climate in Israel at
the time was becoming more and more right
wing.
As such, Israel had to schedule elections
for the following year. In those elections,
Kadima (and, therefore, Livni) won the pop-
ular vote, but the chances of Livni forming
a government were no better than they had
been a few months prior.
Knowing this, Israeli President Shimon
Peres asked Netanyahu, leader of right-wing
party Likud, to form a government — the
first time in Israeli history that the winning
party of an election was not asked to form
a government. As a result, Livni twice lost
the opportunity to become Israel's second
female prime minister as well as the one
most likely to bring about peace with its
Arab neighbors.
'
Prime Minister on page 39
38
May 29 • 2014
T
hey represent a spurious strategy that has emboldened
Jewish extremist settlers and their supporters, typically
in reprisal for Israel's freezes on new settlements and
demolition of illegal settlements or to exact retribution against
Palestinian attacks on Jews.
Dubbed "price tag" attacks, they are a cancer on the body and
soul of the State of Israel.
There's no mistaking that.
Targets of the vandalism include churches, mosques, Israeli
Arab and Jewish homes and property, and Israeli military bases
and vehicles. In a rape of the land, olive trees in a West Bank
Arab village were toppled. Even a Jerusalem synagogue was
defaced.
Attackers leave their mark with anti-Arab and anti-government
slogans, including the phrase "price tag," often accompanied by
hateful and racist slogans, the name of an illegal settlement or a
reference to an Israeli casualty of Palestinian terror. The implica-
tion is that the desecration is the "cost" of Israeli government
action against settlements or for anti-Israeli violence.
Attacks have metastasized from inside the West Bank to inside
Israel; clearly, the ultranationalist Jewish lawbreakers have
heightened the political ante. Israel's Justice Minister Tzipi Livni
got it right: "What began as love of the land has become, in part,
a wild west sown with hate toward Arabs, the state of laws and
its representatives."
Innocent people, Jews and Arabs alike, have been endangered
in the volatile slipstream.
Unsettled Times
The April suspension of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks spurred an
uptick in price tag attacks, perhaps out of fear by the perpetra-
tors that Israeli government policies would shift and come down
harder on West Bank settlements.
Israeli security forces have had a hard time keeping pace, part-
ly because of the collusion among perpetrators and supporters
in cloaking the attacks and partly because of the diversity of the
attackers, who have indoctrinated susceptible yeshivah teens and
Israeli soldiers, not just hardened settlement activists.
Price tag attacks began as a phenomenon in 2008.
The perpetrators who commit such misguided criminal acts
willingly and flagrantly, or injure others in the process, violate
Israel's laws. They must be held accountable. They aren't above
the law or immune from it. Nor are their accomplices, unwitting
or otherwise.
What's lacking are stricter laws against price tag attacks and
sterner punishment to discourage them. Spiritual "leaders" in
settlements who interpret Halachah, or Jewish law, to justify evil-
doing are fraudulent purveyors of Torah values.
A Potent Tactic
The price tag cancer spreads rapidly and is flaunted publicly.
This cancer must be isolated, neutralized and eradicated from
Israeli society. Israel as a nation has condemned the abominable
acts, but must do more to identify and punish the fanatical play-
ers. It's time for Israeli political, religious and societal leaders to
berate what the Anti-Defamation League terms "the underlying
hatred and racism that motivates price tag attacks" – and have
the courage to say, "Dayenu, enough."
Only then will Israel have the Lincoln-like fortitude to do some-
thing dramatic – such as rooting out the evildoers and strin-
gently enforcing laws that counter the price-tag brand of terror,
and giving the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency full oversight
before somebody dies in an attack. ❑