Tzipi Livni is a political asset. At least that’s the received wisdom in Israeli politics – ever since Benjamin Netanyahu appointed her to the senior role of head of the Government Companies Authority in 1996, and boosted her political career, helping her get into the Knesset in 1999. Ariel Sharon thought she was an asset, appointing her foreign minister and taking her along with him when he broke away from Likud and founded Kadima. Isaac Herzog also thought she was when he proposed that she join forces with Labor in forming Zionist Union and even offered to share his prime-ministerial term with her, should the party win the 2015 election.

And Livni seemed to bear out those valuations in elections. As leader of Kadima in 2009, she actually won one more seat than Netanyahu’s Likud. The party she founded in 2013, Hatnuah, won six seats, out of nothing. And together with Labor, Zionist Union under her joint leadership with Herzog did much better than expected with 24 seats.

But at the same time, Livni has been political kryptonite. She is the only Israeli politician to have twice lead the largest party in the Knesset and failed to form a coalition. In Kadima’s short history, she was the only leader to have been dumped by the party membership. On the last day of the 2015 election campaign, Herzog announced that should he win, Livni wouldn’t be half-term prime minister after all – and now, on Tuesday, Labor Party chairman Avi Gabbay unceremoniously cut ties with her, announcing without warning that he was breaking up the Zionist Union partnership.

Read the full article at Haaretz.