Tzipi Livni have "a clear choice in February between a leader who has the courage to abandon tired old thinking on politics and security and one who has not." Although it expressed some doubts, the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" also endorsed Livni for prime minister. When Livni was tapped to form the next governing coalition, Palestinian political analyst Mahdi Abdel Hadi said that Livni had been received warmly in the Gulf, and that she was the leader most Arabs want to see as Israel's next prime minister. During the 2009 general elections, Arab media depicted her very negatively but as the lesser of
Tzipi Livni by Livni's decision to leave Likud and also accepted her support for the two-state solution, although it "hurt her." Livni entered politics in 1995 when she tried unsuccessfully to win a place on Likud's list to the Knesset. She was appointed as head of the government-owned corporations authority in Netanyahu's government, and oversaw the privatization of a number of companies. While in this capacity, in 1998 she was considered a prominent candidate to become director general of the Finance Ministry. Livni would later rue the decision to privatize certain companies and natural resources. As Hatnuah chairwoman in 2013, she wrote: