Considerations

Second in a series

The faith of Israelis in their current government is probably at the lowest point in the country's history. President Moshe Katsav is expected to be charged with rape, among other crimes. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is being investigated for possible "shady real estate deals, abuse of influence, and unlawful political appointments." Police commander Moshe Karadi resigned following dealings with organized crime. Tax Commissioner Jacky Matza resigned after a corruption scandal at the Tax Authority. Former Justice Minister Haim Ramon was convicted of forcibly kissing a woman while at the prime minister's office.

Israelis have lost faith in their leaders. Moreover, the very nature of the country's political process breeds corruption. This hurts the peace process, and it needs to be changed -- for the sake of Israel, the Palestinians, and the region.

For those who are unaware, here's a crash course in the Israel electoral system. No citizen ever votes for a person. There are no legislative districts. On Election Days, people vote for a political party, not a person. (The American equivalent would be a person walking into a voting booth and ticking the box next to "Democratic Party" or "Republican Party.") As long as a party receives a minimum number of votes, that party will receive a percentage of Parliament seats that is roughly equal to the percentage of votes it gets nationwide: If Labor gets 20% of the vote, the party will have 20% of the seats. The party that receives the greatest number of seats is asked by the president to form a government. Since no single party ever gets enough seats to have a majority, the aforementioned party will form coalitions with other parties to gain a majority in Parliament.

So, that's how the composition of the Israeli Parliment is chosen. But who decides which people sit in the Parliment? Not the people -- the political parties themselves! Each party creates a list of its candidates for Parliment in order of preference. If the party receives two seats in an election, the top two people on the list are elected. If the party receives 20 seats, then the top 20 people are elected. (The party leader is always first.) I can only imagine how many promises of favors and outright bribery occurs during the times that the order of the list is chosen.

The effects of this system are widespread and negative. Firstly, the Israelis do not elect people directly, so they naturally have less faith in their leaders. (If I vote for a candidate, I'm expressing some degree of confidence in that individual.) Secondly, it is hard for voters to keep ineptor corrupt people out of power as long as the party places them high enough on its list for Parliament. Thirdly, the entire system of placing people on party lists invites corruption at every level. The leaders of Israel, as representatives of the Israeli people, need to have the political and moral authority to negotiate peace effectively.

Moreover, this political system harms the peace process in general. The Middle East, as everyone knows, is full of intense ideological differences. Israel is no different. By asking people to vote for an ideology (as opposed to a person) at the ballot box, the government encourages partisanship and extremism. This leads to political instability in Israel, as well as throughout the region.

On another level, this system hurts Israel's day-to-day domestic affairs. The executive and legislative branches are combined, and each part of Israel has no member of Parliament to represent them. One of the positive aspects of the American system is that citizens can ask their specific elected officials -- from city councilors to U.S. senators -- to help them with various needs. The residents of Netanya, for example, has no specific member of Parliament looking out for them because the entire country is considered an entire electoral district with proportional representation.

The fractured parliamentary system also hurts the peace process directly. Since there are dozens of political parties that each have their own viewpoints, it is next to impossible to reach a moderate compromise. There are two dominant -- and contradictory -- views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue: the Left believes that Israel will have security after they give land; the Right believes that Israel cannot give land until they have security. There is a middle way (more on that in another post), but it is currently impossible to get there under the current system.

In addition, since neither of the two major parties -- the left-wing Labor and right-wing Likud -- ever gain a majority, they must partner with smaller, extremist parties in order to gain a majority. (The present governing coalition, led by the new, centrist Kadima party, is an aberration that barely survived Ariel Sharon and will soon collapse due to the aforementioned corruption.) A smaller party has disproportionate power because if the government ever adopts a policy it dislikes, the party can withdraw its three seats and force the coalition to lose its majority. This is the primary reason why extremists -- from religious ones like the charedim to others like the settlers who live deep inside the West Bank -- have a significant amount of power. The nature of any new political system must move people and governments towards the center. (This is what occurs in the United States -- no matter what liberals and conservatives claim, this country is nowhere near as polarized as the rest of the world. Our liberals and conservatives are moderates compared to their counterparts in other countries.)

Someone like Avigdor Lieberman -- who has advocated for violence against Palestinians and Israeli Arabs -- should not be in government, but Olmert gave him a ministership to gain his party's support for the weakened governing coalition.

Israel needs to:

• Divide the country into electoral districts that are each represented by a member of Parliament;
• Devise an electoral system so that the receipient of the most votes in a district wins the election (a secondary option is to have run-off elections in a district until one candidate receives a majority);
• Draft a written constitution; and
• Place candidates' names on ballots rather than party identification (or both).

The entire series: Part V: The Right of Return; Part IV: The Palestinians Need a Viable State; Part III: Settlements and the Separation Barrier; Part I: Fix the Palestinian Authority

Now Available: E-Book download: "Let­ters from Israel: An Amer­i­can journalist’s adven­tures in the Holy Land."

Related posts:

1. Solving the Middle East, Part VI: Israel and Syria
2. Solving the Middle East, Part I: Fix the Palestinian Authority
3. Solving the Middle East, Part V: The Right of Return
4. Solving the Middle East, Part IV: The Palestinians Need a Viable State
5. Solving the Middle East, Part III: Settlements and the Separation Barrier