By Stan Goodenough
Oct 06, 2008
If she becomes Israel's next prime minister, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will push ahead with the Annapolis process (the latest appelation affixed to the US-pushed land-for-peace effort) with the aim of reaching a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinian Arab leadership.
This is according to Livni's first policy speech since being elected to the chair of Israel's ruling Kadima Party, and which was delivered Sunday to a Jerusalem audience that included ambassadors of the US, France and Germany as well as representatives of the PLO.
"Annapolis will continue," she said, but added that Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas was not in a politically-strong enough position to accept the kind of blanket offer of land made by outgoing premier Ehud Olmert last week.
Nevertheless, both Israel and the PLO should "not allow dates or political changes to stand in our way.
"The point is to understand the required concessions in order to conduct a correct process," Livni said.
Those "concessions" amount to nothing less than Israel's surrender of the cradle of Jewish civilization in exchange for Arab promises of peace.
Livni has spent many hours in close and intense discussion with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who is pushing hard for an Israeli-PA agreement of some form or other to be signed by year's end.
The Israeli is working to cobble together a coalition which she would head up as prime minister if she succeeds.
Israelis and Christians opposed to this suicidal diplomatic direction are praying the Kadima Party will implode over increasingly prevalent internal differences and that Livni will not succeed to form a government.