TZIPI Levi's election as leader of Israel's Kadima Party to succeed Ehud Olmert as Israeli prime minister was achieved by a one per cent lead over her principal opponent Shaul Mofaz.
Although as foreign minister Levi has supported Olmert's peace negotiations with the Palestinians and accepts the principle of a two-state solution, the narrowness of her victory over Mofaz, a former general with hawkish views on Iran and the Palestinians, suggests that she will have considerable difficulty in forming a coalition within the three months at her disposal.
If she fails, a general election will be called at which a return of Likud under Benjamin Netanyahu will be quite likely - when it was suggested to him the other day that Likud might join forces with Kadima he commented, “It would be tantamount to joining the board of Lehmann Brothers”.
President Bush's Annapolis initiative on an Israeli-Palestinian peace setttlement was never a very robust thing and it has been dying slowly ever since he launched it last November. The intermittent negotiations since then have produced little or nothing on the solution of the significant issues that divide the two sides and even if Tzipi Levi forms a government quickly it is unlikely that she and Mohammad Abbas, the Palestinian president, will be able to produce even an outline agreement to serve as Bush's legacy when he leaves the White House in January.
Incidentally, will a Democrat or Republican prove the better at handling the Israeli-Palestinian problem? Just the role for Sarah Palin?
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