Short answer: Yes. Tzipi Livni, Israel's former foreign minister, has spent her career working from inside Israel's government and diplomatic establishment to secure it as a Jewish and democratic state. She has led peace negotiations, opposed the international boycott (BDS) movement, and after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack backed the war's twin goals of freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas. Since retiring from politics in 2019 she has become an outspoken critic of the Netanyahu government's specific policies (settler militias, judicial changes), which is criticism of a government, not opposition to Israel itself. As of August 2026.
What Tzipi Livni has actually said and done
- June 16, 2015: In a BBC interview reported by Haaretz, Livni rejected the BDS movement, drawing a line between legitimate criticism and boycotts: "There is a huge gap between criticizing a policy... and boycotting and putting sanctions against Israel, which is basically a collective punishment." She also said, "there is no apartheid in Israel."
- February 18, 2019: Announcing her retirement from politics after two decades, Livni told reporters at a Tel Aviv news conference, according to Al Jazeera, "I am leaving politics but I will not let Israel abandon the hope for peace." She warned that attacks on the courts and media under Netanyahu put Israeli democracy "in danger."
- November 2, 2023: In an interview with the New Statesman after the October 7 Hamas attack, Livni said a ceasefire alone "isn't a solution" and that Israel needed both the hostages' release and Hamas's defeat, calling for a "measured" postwar process.
- March 20, 2024: Livni testified as a prosecution witness in Netanyahu's corruption trial, according to the Times of Israel, describing her surprise in 2014 when Netanyahu allowed ministers a free vote on a bill that would have curbed the pro-Netanyahu paper Israel Hayom's circulation. She is not a suspect in the case.
- March 25, 2026: In remarks posted on X and reported by Middle East Monitor, Livni accused the Netanyahu government of undermining Israeli statehood, pointing to armed settler militias operating outside state control and parallel legal systems: "The government of Israel is dismantling the State of Israel."
The bigger picture
Livni was born July 8, 1958, in Tel Aviv into a family with deep roots in Israel's founding: both of her parents were members of the pre-state Irgun underground, and her father Eitan served as the group's chief operations officer. She served in the Mossad in the early 1980s before entering politics, then went on to hold roughly eight cabinet posts across three governments (Sharon, Olmert, and Netanyahu), including Foreign Minister (2006-2009), Justice Minister, and Vice Prime Minister, among the most senior cabinet roles ever held by an Israeli woman.
Livni led Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and again as chief negotiator under Netanyahu in 2013-2014; both rounds collapsed, the latter over settlement expansion and prisoner-release disputes. Throughout, her public position has been consistent: Israel should pursue a two-state solution in order to secure itself as both a Jewish and a democratic state, a framing that assumes and defends Israel's legitimacy and its Jewish national character rather than opposing it. She has explicitly rejected the BDS boycott movement and denied that Israel practices apartheid.
After retiring from elected politics in February 2019, she held academic and advisory roles, including a fellowship at Harvard Kennedy School and a seat on the International Crisis Group board, and remained a frequent commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That included after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, when she backed the war's aims of freeing hostages and removing Hamas from power in Gaza. Her more recent criticism, including the March 2026 statement accusing the current government of "dismantling the State of Israel" through settler militias and parallel legal systems, targets specific Netanyahu-government conduct, not Israel's existence or legitimacy. It is consistent with her long-standing two-state, Jewish-and-democratic-state framework rather than a break from it.
The bottom line
Tzipi Livni supports Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and has built her career defending that project through diplomacy rather than through boycotts or delegitimization. She is also a sharp critic of specific Netanyahu government policies, which is a normal feature of Israeli democratic debate, not a rejection of Israel itself.
Wear your own answer
Livni's decades of public service trace back to the same conviction that drives so many of our customers: pride in Israel as a Jewish and democratic homeland worth defending, even while pushing it to be better. If that resonates, our Star of David necklaces are a quiet, everyday way to carry that same commitment with you.
Related
- Does Tzipi Hotovely Support Israel?
- Does Yair Lapid Support Israel?
- Does Benny Gantz Support Israel?
Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
