Why Tzipi Livni craved the danger of a spy’s double life

The Israeli prime ministerial wannabe saw parallels with the double lives her parents led, says psychoanalyst Coline Covington

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Working for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, was like "living constantly in two worlds". These were Tzipi Livni's words to describe her life as a 22-year-old working undercover in a chic quarter of Paris in the early 1980s at the height of Israel's war with Lebanon.

In an interview circulated last week by Yediot Aharanot, originally published in a censored version 14 years ago, Livni explains, "You're loaded up all the time with adrenaline. Most of the time I was doing strange things normal people never do. I lost all my spontaneity. You must be focused and calculated all the time. Even when I went to the newsagent I would check to see if I had a tail."

Livni only lasted a few years in Mossad before she left in 1984 when she married and launched her dazzling career in politics. Now aged 50, negotiating to form a coalition that would make her Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir, her patriotic past with Mossad has been conveniently revisited in what looks like an effort to boost her reputation.

Even her closest family members were not allowed to know she was a spy

Livni suggests that one of the reasons she left Mossad was because of the isolating, solitary life it required her to lead. Even her closest family members were not allowed to know she was a spy. When her father visited her in Paris, where she gave the appearance of having no job, he apparently could not understand why his daughter, a brilliant law student, "was wasting her time in Europe doing nothing".

Now aged 50, Livni is negotiating to form a coalition that would make her Israel's first female prime minister since Golda Meir

Any long-lasting romance was out of the question because, as Livni put it, "a romantic relationship requires honesty". Furthermore, while she could be proud of her achievements as a member of Bayonet, the elite section of Mossad in which she was highly valued, these too could not be shared with anyone else.

On the other hand, there are certain attractions about leading a double life and the secrecy that it entails. Livni was "loaded with adrenaline" when she was undercover. In these circumstances every ordinary aspect of daily life becomes highly charged and

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Under the semblence of analysis a conveniently pro-Livni article. It is interesting that although the mother is acknowledged a terrorist she is nonetheless a patriot and not particularly villified. Most non-Israeli terrorists rarely get that same understanding. Let us not forget that it was the Israelis who invented modern terrorism. For them it appears it is deplorable or patriotic as the need suits.

Posted by The Anti-Pawn at 10:19pm on February 17, 2009

All I can say to Mr. O'Sullivan is "huh?" Is he forgetting that the real originators of modern day terrorism were Hitler and Stalin? Followed closely by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, not only a Nazi sympathiser but also the one who raised a battalion of Mid European Muslims, and of course Yasser Arafat, who refused to recognise Israel?

Posted by John Valentine at 5:25pm on February 25, 2009

You're confusing genocide and meglamania with terrorism. Read some history books. In the creation of Israel there are some events you may want to appraise yourself of.

Posted by The Anti-Pawn at 12:10pm on April 7, 2009