Israel’s ambassador to Washington calls relations between the US and Israel as in a ‘crisis of historic proportions’, a 35-year low.

Netanyahu’s coalition government relies on the settlers for its existence.

“I think that Netanyahu is at a moment of truth,” says Gideon Doron, a political science professor at Tel Aviv University. “He has to choose whether or not he wants to ignite the forces for peace, or whether he’ll go against the US and play for time. He can’t do that. It’s suicide.” via Christian Science Monitor

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni of the Kadima party, says that Netanyahu ‘is leading us to a diplomatic collapse.’ Livni was quoted in the LA Times on San. 25, 2010 as saying ‘reports of her political demise are premature.

Today it’s seems she was prescient.

Unable to put a government together last fall, Livni has sat on the sidelines, also refusing to join Netanyahu’s government. We support Livni and her vision of a two-state solution for Israel. Like women investors who wait for dividends, rather than trading their stock, Livni has watched her political capital incubate.

We agree with this dynamic, visionary pragmatist when she says: “Gentlemen, the time has come for women.” Livni’s words inspire us to unveil the life of women in Israel, much as we have with women in Sudan with Lubna Ahmed Hussein and Chansa Kabwela in Zambia.

How liberated are the women of Israel, compared to other women in the Middle East? Consider the question front and center in our minds. The digging has begun.

Forgetting Golda Meir for a moment, what is life like for most women in Israel? In supporting Netanyahu and the settlers — rather than supporting enlightened women like Tzipi Livni — what policies are people supporting for women?

The above top photo of Tzipi LIvni was taken at a pre-election party organized by the transsexual singer Dana International. The slogan for the evening was: “Gentlemen, the time has come for women.” The event brought together hundreds of heterosexual females who embraced the message.

A quick read of reports indicates that Livni was reluctant until the very last moment to campaign on any kind of gender-based platform, preferring to win with intelligence, logic and her vision of peace. That’s a tough assignment in a country where significant numbers of men refuse to hear a woman singing, because the sound corrupts them.

Just last year the the Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff’s office has ruled that religiously observant soldiers may not walk out of military assemblies to protest women singing.

As an alternative, the soldiers may focus their eyes elsewhere, the office said. In fact, it seems that women cannot sing the Israeli equivalent of America’s Stars and Stripes. Incredible!

In March 2009, religious soldiers and officers left several IDF ceremonies because women were singing. The most significant incident occured at a Paratroopers’ Brigade assembly when a female member of the brigade sang its anthem. via Haaretz

Livni still doesn’t have to speak from a gender-based platform.

Those who support her two-state solution for Israel|Palestine and also the confirmed research that women are better peacemakers than men, can and will promote new elections in Israel and a government headed by Tzipi Livni.

I totally understand Tzipi Livni’s reluctance to make Israeli politics a women’s issue, but I just did.

Israel-Palestine involves all of us, not only the men of Israel, Palestine and conservative America.

Of course Sarah Palin, Liz Cheney and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife Virginia, who just formed Liberty Central Inc. are also in the gunslinging group.