Ahhhhhhh, that deep sigh of relief now that the elections are over. Peace and quiet. Good books. No polls, no ads, no rallies, no bumper stickers, no robo-calls or lawn signs. Life can be beautiful.
Oops: Not so fast. The elections are not over. There are two more to go. I refer, of course, to the elections in Israel, scheduled for February 10, just 14 short weeks from now.
That is not to say that the elections in Israel resemble those here. Indeed, there could be no greater contrast than these two (yes, there is a third, and we will get to that) provide. The pre-November 4 tension in the U.S. was nearly palpable; the choices were stark, not only at the top of the ticket but for the Senate and the House, for state and local officials and on propositions (153 in 36 states). And the cost, oh the cost: For the presidential campaigns (starting with the primaries) alone, $2.4 billion; add in the congressional elections and contributions by outside groups and you’re up to $5.3 billion. (And I don’t think that estimate, which comes from the Center for Responsive Politics, includes the costs of state and local elections.)
In Israel, in the meantime, where the election campaign from beginning to end is limited to 90 days, there is little tension (except, perhaps, among the leading candidates). The obvious reason for that is systemic: The Israelis don’t vote directly for candidates; they vote for political parties in a system known as “proportional representation.” Under this system, each party is awarded the same proportion of the 120 seats in the Knesset that it won in the election. So if your party wins, say, 30% of the total vote, the first 36 people on your party’s list will become members of the Knesset. It does you, the voter, no good if you prefer, say, candidate No. 1 on the Kadima list but candidates Nos. 2-5 on the Likud list. You get to pick one list, and that’s it.
Israel is not the only country in the world that uses proportional representation. But Israel is unique in that the entire nation constitutes one constituency, meaning that those elected have little connection, if any, to a geographically defined constituency.
The proportional representation system is almost constantly under attack, but reforming it in a major way would doubtless eliminate some of the smaller parties, and they together have sufficient strength to block reforms.
But in the current season, there is a still deeper reason for the humdrumness of the Israeli campaign. Very many voters have concluded that it just doesn’t matter who wins. And the reason it doesn’t matter is that the peace process is jammed, there is no de Gaulle nor even a Sarkozy, let alone an Obama, to fire things up. There is Tzipi Livni, who squeaked into the leadership of Kadima and who, her reputation for probity notwithstanding, is very much a creature of the system, and there is Benjamin Netanyahu, warmed over but evidently not yet toast. Netanyahu cannot do what Livni might have chosen to do by taking a page from Obama’s book — better, a whole chapter — and presenting herself as a fervent change agent. But she did not, has not.
So where the American elections were overflowing with energy, the Israeli elections are drying up from lethargy.
Now, as promised, it’s time to introduce the third election I referred to above. It is not generally recognized that in Israel, governments are the result of not one election but two. The second election takes place after the voters have cast their ballots. (The sticklers will point out that long before election day, several of the parties have primaries to determine who will be on the party list and in what order. True, but beside the present point.) That second election — actually, I should be saying “election,” in quotation marks — is the laborious process by which the leader of the party that’s scored the most votes (no party has ever won an outright majority) cobbles together a 61-seat coalition. That is the majority required to form a government, and it always involves intricate negotiations with several parties — often enough with parties that have substantially different policies not only from each other but also from the leading party, the one seeking to form the government.
If the majority that emerges is narrow, that means that even the smaller parties in the coalition can — and often do — make outrageous financial demands (one might call the process “pork barrel,” but let’s settle for earmarks) in return for their continuing support. It’s the job of the prime minister to deal with those demands, and that job can get totally hairy if the demands of one member of the coalition conflict with demands or principles of another — or with the exigencies of the budget process.
What all this means is that the voters in the polling booth are doubly disabled. They must vote for a party list that includes the names of many people of whom they’ve never heard and is led by people who do not, in any sense familiar to us in America, represent them — and then, having cast that murky ballot, they must wait to see what sort of government takes power. It is an entirely muddy process, and also a costly one. And the cost goes well beyond the shekels required to sustain the coalition. It includes the cost in civic engagement. Quite likely, it acts as a disincentive to the potential de Gaulles to devote themselves to political careers, ensuring that the best and the brightest will choose other professions.
The upshot? The political decisions that lie before Israel are no less momentous than those that face us here. But the system is sluggish, and the citizens are exhausted.
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The proportional representation system in Israel, despite all its difficulties, is actually very suited to the nature of our society. Israel is a highly-educated and ideologically-motivated people. An election system such as in the UK or the USA (in which a single member of Knesset would be elected from a particular district) would mean that all the small minority ideologies would not win any seats at all. The result would be, as in the UK and the USA, that two or three large parties would win all the seats. Everyone knows the classic joke that "two Jews go to three synagogues". In other words, Jews tend to split into small ideological groups as befits an intensely-aware and well-educated public. So, indeed, as Mr Fein points out, a small group gets a lot of leverage in the final government coalition - and this is the source of much criticism. However, it is very proper and worthy that such a small party should have a public voice in Israel. It should be added that the different ideologies represented in the Knesset are always busy with issues on the Jewish agenda (Israel is clearly at the very center of stage in this era of Jewish history). In the American system, obviously, it is impossible to present an agenda that deals with the interest of the Jewish public. The Jews speak proudly of the number of "Jewish congressmen" who were elected; however, in reality, there is not a single politician who can claim to speak for Jews. In fact, in the last paragraph, Mr Fein speaks of momentous decisions "that face us here" (in the USA). The word "us" doesn't mean "us the Jewish community", obviously - it means "us the American public in general". The system, for better or for worse, doesn't allow for such a particular agenda. In Israel, representatives in the Knesset do not see themselves as representing a particular district, but they do see themselves as representing a constituency that has an important agenda. For better or for worse, it is a different type of democratic thinking.
Israel needs leaders who will put the nations interests before their own personal interests, those of the international press, and the EU. Unfortunately, the last prime minister who fit that category was Yitzhak Shamir. Since then, Israel hasnt had a leader of the caliber of Bashir Assad or Crown Prince Abdullah. Israel needs true leadership now
Actually, Holland also elects all its members of parliament froma single national list. The fact that Israel and Holland have nearly identical voting systems illustrates that the voting system doesn't explain everything. Israel's fractious politics are not caused by its voting system, any more than rain is caused by too many umbrellas. In fact, Israel's voting system is perfectly designed to deal with the impossibly diverse nature of Israeli society, and probably deserves some of the credit for Israel's ability to survive through sixty years of turmoil. No problems would be solved by limiting voter choice or disenfranchising some voters.
Mr. Smith- Holland is equally ungovernable. After the general election of Nov, 2006 it took months for the current PM to carve out a working coalition. A system that sends hardcore Animal Rights activists to the Volksraad in The Hague and anti-Zionist charedi and Arabist parties to the Knesset in Jerusalem is doomed to promoting instability. I don't think it would represent an undemocratic act for either Israel or the Netherlands to raise the minimum threshold, perhaps to the 5% required in Germany, or go to a first past the post system like we have in the US, when it comes to electing parliaments. Either option would empower majority governments to complete their mandates and most importantly stifile special interest parties from holding the National Community hostage to their narrow agendas. Israel does need a Prime Minister who puts the nation first. In my estimation the last PM to do that for Medinat Yisrael was Levi Eshkol.