Few people outside Israel had heard of the foreign minister until she called for Ehud Olmert's resignation yesterday. The Winograd report into the war with Lebanon last summer damned the PM's planning and handling of the conflict. Now Ms Livni is positioning herself as Israel's second female PM.
"Mr Olmert plans to dismiss her over the remarks," the Times says. But the PM is cleverer than that, according to the Herald Tribune. Mr Olmert would hang her "out to dry", an aide tells the paper.
Israel's vice prime minister Tzipi Livni. Photograph: Han Myung-Gu/EPA.
Ms Livni is Israel's most popular politician, according to the Independent. A 48-year-old former Mossad spy, she "likes the company of strong women" - notably Condoleezza Rice - and was elected to the Knesset in 1999 as a Likud member. She has since tacked to the centre. Nonetheless, says the Independent, "it was not yet clear that she can be confident of commanding a broad-based coalition, which currently stretches from the Labour party, of which Mr Peretz is leader, to the hard-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, and the ultra-orthodox Shas." She also has no top-level military experience - a particular disadvantage in Israel, especially for such a strong critic of Mr Olmert's tactics.
* This is a fuller version of a section in today's Wrap, our digest of the daily papers.
