VZCZCXRO8672
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHTV #1632/01 2111457
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 291457Z JUL 08
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7736
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 001632 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PINR PGOV IS
SUBJECT:  THE LIVNI CAMPAIGN MANTRA: CLEAN GOVERNMENT 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  FM Tzipi Livni launched her public campaign for 
the leadership of the Kadima Party in June - well before the Kadima 
Council formally decided in July to hold primaries in September. 
Livni's consistent campaign message to the Kadima electorate has 
been a call for a clean slate of leaders to restore public faith in 
government.  Her mantra and its implied criticism of the prime 
minister have irritated Olmert, whose standing continues to slip in 
the polls (despite his efforts to discredit his accusers).  Livni's 
attempt to portray her style of politics as more capable and clean 
has also resulted in closer scrutiny of her own actions, and 
reporters scrutinized her decision to fly home alone from Paris on a 
taxpayer-funded business-class ticket rather than share a seat on 
Olmert's airplane.  The tight Kadima primary race with Minister of 
Transportation Shaul Mofaz, who also claims to be clean, may force 
Livni to take political considerations into account while she 
continues her negotiations with the Palestinians.  Livni reportedly 
told Kadima audiences that she is against prematurely codifying the 
results of her negotiations for fear of revealing concessions that 
might weaken her in the race against Mofaz.  End Summary. 
 
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A FALSE START MAKES LIVNI CAUTIOUS 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (U) Just over a year ago, in the wake of the Winograd 
Commission's Interim Report on the conduct of the Second Lebanon 
War, FM Livni issued a very public call for PM Olmert's resignation. 
 When Olmert ignored Livni's call and remained in office, she drew 
much criticism for what came to be known as her "U-turn-decision" to 
remain in Olmert's government. Since that May 2007 news conference, 
Livni has exercised caution, never mentioning Olmert by name in any 
of her repeated attacks on the quality or style of his leadership 
while intensifying her advocacy of a change at the helm of both 
party and nation. 
 
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LIVNI'S CALL FOR A CLEAN POLITICS 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) A year after her May 2007 miscalculation, at a conference 
on homeland security in Jerusalem, Livni unveiled her current 
political strategy: Shift the focus away from the Prime Minister and 
the imbroglios in which he is involved and place it on the needs of 
the party and the people.  Speaking shortly after Defense Minister 
Barak's call for Kadima leadership primaries, Livni seized the 
occasion to declare: "It is not possible to ignore the events of the 
last few days. This is not just a matter of whether it is a legal or 
criminal issue, nor is it only a personal affair concerning the 
Prime Minister. It concerns questions of values and of the norms we 
wish to instill and their effect on public trust in politics in 
Israel." 
 
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MOFAZ RETORTS THAT HE ISN'T CROOKED 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (U) In June, FM Livni began to address a much broader electorate 
than the limited Kadima membership which will have the right to vote 
for party leader.  "When the public gives its mandate," Livni told a 
Conference for Quality of Government, "it wants to know that it can 
trust its chosen leaders and not that those in power are weighing 
their own future rather than the future of the citizens of Israel." 
She added that: "A society that considers anything that is not 
criminal to be tolerable is a society without norms and values. I 
can't believe that Israeli society is an immoral society. The norms 
are a tool in the hands of the public, whose chosen leaders are 
supposed to pay a price or be rewarded."  Livni's chief rival, 
Minister of Transportation Shaul Mofaz, also claims to be as clean 
as Livni, and recently quipped to a Ma'ariv reporter: "And what I 
am, crooked?" 
 
----------------------------- 
IF ELECTED: LIVNI'S MANIFESTO 
----------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (U) Livni's themes include honesty, reliability and dedication 
to a higher cause than self-interest.  She unveiled her most direct 
formulation of this theme at a Tel Aviv University conference on 
June 22 on "Israel: State of the Nation," in which she reviewed 
sixty years of Israel's relations with the international community 
before turning to politics:  "If you grab the first person you see 
passing on the street and ask them how they would describe the state 
of the nation in one word -- they will say "bad" -- and in two words 
"very bad". If the collective sense is one of public loss of faith 
in its elected officials, and a feeling that systems are breaking 
down and that there is no one who may be relied upon, then the road 
from here to anarchy in which everyone does what they consider to be 
right... is very short." 
 
¶6.  (U) Livni's campaign mantra broadened, in this forum, from the 
theme of ethics in public life to larger issues of national purpose 
 
TEL AVIV 00001632  002 OF 002 
 
 
and commitment:  "The first thing a politician must do when elected, 
is to return the faith to the public... get to know his office... 
and try and create reforms if change is needed."  Livni diagnosed a 
root cause of the Israeli "malaise": the incessant distraction 
caused by the "Internet era" in which "Headlines change from second 
to second...and the message changes every minute." "We need" she 
said "to restore the common denominator -- that writing on the wall 
-- and that requires political and diplomatic decisions by the 
leadership, which almost always involves a choice in which the 
short-term and long-term cost and goal are in conflict with one 
another." 
 
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PURELY POLITICS 
--------------- 
 
¶7.  (U) Livni's public appearances have not been limited to devotees 
of government reform and clean government, though she has turned up 
the volume on her refrain.  At a July conference on democracy at the 
President's residence, she reportedly stated that "from the criminal 
aspect, a person who breaks the law pays with his freedom; from the 
normative aspect, this man must pay with his office," according to 
the Jerusalem Post.  She has rolled up her sleeves and begun to 
actively recruit Kadima Party members around the country, in an 
effort stay ahead of Mofaz and the other Kadima candidates.  She has 
relied heavily on her deputy minister of foreign affairs, Majalli 
Whbee, to recruit Druze voters to the party, and used the occasion 
of a farewell event at Whbee's home in Beit Jann in honor of 
Ambassador Jones to emphasize her long history of cooperation and 
support for the Druze community in Israel. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Comment:  Livni's role in negotiations with the 
Palestinians since Annapolis has mostly been out of the public eye. 
Should Olmert press for a more public debate about these 
negotiations, it could put Livni at a disadvantage vis-a-vis her 
chief rival, Mofaz.  A recent Jerusalem Post article noted that 
Kadima officials speculate that Livni has been adamant about not 
drafting any agreement with the Palestinians (before Kadima 
primaries in September) for fear that the concessions in such a 
document might cost her critical political support. 
MORENO