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Kadima wins elections, but will it form the next government? Kadima and its Chairwoman, Tzipi Livni, are the big winners of the 2009 general elections, according to a Rafi Smith exit poll commissioned by Ynet, with Likud finishing a disappointing 2nd. Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu delivered at crunch time to become Israel's third-largest party, while Ehud Barak's Labor party sustained a harsh blow. Exit polls by Israel's major television channels showed similar results

JERUSALEM (AP) - The two front-runners in the race to rule Israel made last-minute appeals to voters as polls opened Tuesday in a close general election whose outcome could determine the course of Mideast peace negotiations.

JERUSALEM, Feb 9 (Reuters) - With Israeli pollsters predicting a close national election on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is wooing female swing voters whose support could help her clinch victory. Campaign ads for Livni's centrist Kadima party splashed over billboards and across websites promise a "different kind of prime minister" and urge Israelis to elect the country's first woman prime minister in three decades. Livni, 50, an ex-Mossad agent, had avoided playing the "gender card" for fear of appearing weak in a male-dominated society where frequent wars with Arab neighbours tend to make generals and other military figures more...

(IsraelNN.com) Kadima leader Tzipi Livni said over the weekend that men work inefficiently to tally up extra hours at work. "Women don't work inefficiently and tally up extra hours, while men are inefficient, they have time, and a lot of extra hours. They make more money, and I fought to change that,” she said in a speech at the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo. The attack on men's work habits was an attempt by Livni to explain the wage gap between the average salaries of men and women in public service, which studies have shown is largely caused by a...

(IsraelNN.com) The cabinet has voted to accept a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza. Two ministers voted against the proposal and one abstained from voting.

A high-level Iranian cleric has called for the shooting of the Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in a speech before worshippers, it was reported Saturday. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said during Friday prayers that he wanted someone to shoot Livni. "Every time the picture of this woman is shown, I really wish that somebody would expend a bullet on her," he said according to a recording of the sermon obtained by the Associated Press. A copy of the speech was also translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Middle Eastern press monitoring service. Jannati is the head of...

With only four days remaining until the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama - a date widely regarded by Israeli analysts as the cut-off date for Israel's Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza, the prospects for a mutually agreed ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist terror group seemed slimmer than earlier in the week. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, center, Islamic Jihad head Ramadan Shallah and Ahmad Jebril, Secretary General of the Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine-General Command attend the emergency Arab summit on Gaza in Doha, Qatar on Friday. An official statement from the Defense Ministry remained mum...

A country, any country, has to maintain a rule of law. Failure to do so leads to eventual anarchy and a modern version of the Wild West; no civilized country could survive that without either becoming a dictatorship and/or a nation run by corrupt thugs. Barak, Olmert, Livni, and Netanyahu have unequivocally shown that their main concern is not what is best for their country but what is best for each of them. Their actions, their greed, make a mockery of Israel’s national anthem. The last stanza of the anthem goes: Od lo avda tikvatenu, hatikvah shnot alpayim lihyiot am...

Kadima leader Tzipi Livni signalled on Thursday that she believed Israeli Arabs could best fulfill their nationalist goals by moving to a future Palestinian state. "My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic State of Israel is to have two nation-states with certain concessions and with clear red lines," Livni told a group of students at a Tel Aviv high school. "And among other things, I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli Arabs, and tell them, 'your national solution lies elsewhere.'" Livni went on to emphasize that she preferred Israeli...

NEW YORK, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians said on Thursday Israel did not need any "dramatic" intervention in the peace process from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama when he takes office in January. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who could become prime minister after Israel's general election in February, told Jewish leaders in New York the international community should limit itself to backing the talks according to parameters set out at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, nearly a year ago. The talks have been hobbled by violence and bitter disputes over Jewish settlement building and...

With Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the US presidential race, the stakes have been raised for Israel's February 10 general elections. Whatever the Obama administration's position on Israel may be, it will not be more supportive of the country than the Bush administration has been. And over the past year, the supportive Bush administration has decided not to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and not to support an Israeli effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. If Israel's next prime minister intends to prevent Teheran from acquiring the means to implement its stated aim of destroying Israel, he...

It didn't take long for the Israeli Foreign Minister to weigh in on President elect Obama's desire to talk to Iran: "We live in a neighbourhood in which sometimes dialogue . . . is liable to be interpreted as weakness." When asked if she supported talks between the U.S. and Iran: "The answer is no." Of coarse Obama believes we are showing weakness by not talking to Iran: "I'm not afraid of negotiating with anybody. I fear no man. Or woman."

Analyst: Obama and Livni - the Axis of Weakness by Tamar Yonah (IsraelNN.com) A victory by Barack Obama in the United States presidential race and a victory by Tzipi Livni's Kadima party in Israeli parliamentary elections would be detrimental to both countries, emboldening Iran to attack Israel, as Obama and Livni are both weak in the world political arena. So says Dr. Jerome Corsi, author of the book, "The Obama Nation" in the audio interview below. Corsi was speaking this past week on Israel National radio's Weekend Edition about his recent trip to Kenya –home of Obama's father - to...

Kadima beats Likud in new pollDahaf-Yedioth Ahronoth survey published Monday morning points to close race, as Livni takes the lead with 29 Knesset seats, Netanyahu follows with 26 seats. Labor plummets to 11 seats, while Shas may lose power Kadima Chairwoman Tzipi Livni appears to be enjoying the fruit of her declaration that she will not give in to extortion. A new Yedioth Ahronoth survey conducted by the Dahaf Institute and published Monday morning showed that had the Knesset elections taken place today, Livni would have led Kadima to victory with 29 Knesset seats, the same number of mandates it...

(IsraelNN.com) Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni, who is to inform President Shimon Peres today that she failed at forming a new government, admits it's because she refused a Shas demand to promise to keep all of Jerusalem. Livni was able to reach a coalition agreement with Labor, but the Shas Party informed her late last week that it would be unable to join her government. Without Shas, Livni cannot form a government with a comfortable Knesset majority. Shas says that Livni refused to meet its demands: Increased montly child allowance payments for large and medium-sized families, and a promise to...

Tzipi Livni, newly-elected head of Israel’s ruling Kadima Party, announced on Friday that she will stick to a Sunday deadline for forming a new government, despite the fact that she has failed to bring all of the parties necessary for a majority coalition on board.

PA wants Livni and Obama The veteran terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization is hoping for a double whammy in its favor next month when it hopes Israel will come under the prime ministership of Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni and Americans will put Barack Obama in the White House.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday said that the recent peace offer made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is enough to get a final status agreement signed, but recognized that the outgoing Israeli leader does not have the ability to implement the proposal. “We could have peace in two days” if Olmert’s offer could be implemented, Abbas told a group of Muslim clerics at the tail end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Tzipi Livni adopting "Balls of Steel" as her image for campaign Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 21 September 2008 It isn't clear if Tzipi Livni is following the recommendation of her PR team or came up with it by herself, but in any case it is becoming rapidly clear that she has decided to adopt a "balls of steel" image to prove she is the rightful heir to Ariel Sharon's mantle. On Friday she took a vocal position calling for PM Olmert to resign ASAP. Today she vetoed delaying Olmert's resignation until after President Peres' trip to the UN this week...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will hand in his resignation to President Shimon Peres at 7:30 p.m. Sunday to carry out an orderly transfer of power, Cabinet Secretary Ovad Yehezkel announced. Once Peres receives the letter, he will meet with the heads of the 13 Knesset factions to consult with them about whom he should appoint to form a new coalition before formally appointing new Kadima leader Tzipi Livni. She will then have 42 days to form a coalition - but her goal is to present a new government to the Knesset when it returns for its winter session on October...