Livni at Herzliya Conference
Livni at Herzliya ConferenceIDC Herzliya

Kadima Party chairwoman Tzipi Livni took a shot at Israel's rabbis and its religious population in a speech at the opening session of the second day of the annual Herzliya Conference on Wednesday. 

The conference, held at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, is set to continue through Thursday at the IDC Herzliya Campus, traditionally the venue for addresses by top politicians and policymakers both in Israel and abroad..

Livni focused on the issue of "the minority in the State of Israel [imposing] its will on the majority of those in the State of Israel."

The chairwoman, who heads the Opposition and last year fought a battle for political survival, claimed a similar existential battle for the survival of Israel's values is also raging in the country.

"There are two visions in Israel, which are completely different, and they are colliding with one another," she explained. "The first sees Israel as a 'national home for the Jewish people... a home for all its citizens' where the rule of law and authority sits within the courts," she said.

The second, she went on to say, is "another country which is some kind of improved ghetto" and the "source of authority is the rabbis and not the court." She lamented this separation was not "half and half that tear equally."

The Kadima chairwoman also complained that 50 percent of students in Israel are being taught in Hebrew, while another percentage are being taught in Arabic, and yet another percentage are being taught in Yiddish, "with no connection whatsoever to what they were being taught."