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Livni says plans underway to set up Israeli center political bloc

Xinhua, June 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

Tzipi Livni,a prominent Israeli center-left politician said Thursday plans are underway to establish a center "democratic bloc" in Israeli politics.

"Our job now is to awaken the moderate and latent camp and create a bloc that fights for a democratic and Jewish Israel, for the two-state solution and against the right-wing coalition's path," Livni said at the annual Herzliya conference, a forum of political and military decision-makers, according to a statement from the conference's spokesperson.

Livni, a center-left politician, served in Netanyahu's former governments as foreign minister and the chief negotiator with the Palestinians.

She and the Labor party's chief, Isaac Herzog, established the center "Zionist Union" list, with Livni placed second on the list's roster.

Livini said that the establishment of the Zionist Union, several months before the March 2015 elections, was "the beginning of the move" and that it needs to be extended now to form a larger bloc in the Israeli parliament that would threaten Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's regime.

The list received 24 seats in the 120-member parliament, as opposed to the Likud party's 30 seats, and Herzog serves as head of the opposition to Netanyahu in parliament

"There's a clear majority for the two-state solution within the Israeli people and we need a large camp to express this majority in a clear way," Livni said, suggesting there will be two major parties in Israeli politics, similar to the Democratic and Republican parties in the U.S.

"Israel must make a decision right now that it has avoided making for fifty years," she said, regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Without a decision on annexation or partition, we're bumbling about without a direction, while the conflict seeps in and undermines Israel's values," Livni concluded.

Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who was ousted last month by Netanyahu in favor of the hawkish Avigdor Lieberman as part of the efforts to enlarge the governing coalition, also made statements regarding his plans in politics at the conference on Thursday.

Ya'alon, a right-wing moderate who resigned his position as lawmaker after Netanyahu's move, criticized Netanyahu's "fearmongering" tactics, and said he will contend for the leadership of Israel in the next elections.

The Israeli public had grown increasingly divided in the past year, following the results of the March 2015 elections, and amid an ongoing wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians which claimed the lives of 32 Israelis and 205 Palestinians. Endit