Howard Linett
A Primer for Americans: Israel’s National Election
February 4, 2009
 

On February 10th Israelis will elect a Prime Minister and all of the 120 members of Israel’s legislature. The candidates running for the position of Prime Minister believe that a Photo-Op with President Obama improves their chance for victory. I believe my fellow Americans deserve an explanation of the Israeli political morass. Israel’s government is divided into three branches just like the government of the United States, but the similarity ends there. While Israel is a democracy, its system of government and governance is far from what we learned about democracy in high school Civics Class.

To begin with unlike the United States, Israel has no Constitution and no Bill of Rights. It has an assortment of "Basic Laws.” What makes a Basic Law special is that it can only be amended by a "Supermajority” of 81 members of Israel’s legislature. Israel’s Judiciary gives special deference to Basic Laws, affording them the status of an unwritten, unofficial constitution.

Israelis vote for a political party, not for a candidate. There is no local representation, no person in his or her geographic area for who an Israeli may vote. At any given time there are a dozen or more Israeli political parties. Some of the parties are formed around a political philosophy. Some are based upon achieving a common goal. Some are formed around mutual interest. Several are based exclusively on religion. Several are based upon being Arab. In this election there are thirty-three (33) separate parties running!

Each party participating in the election fields a "List” of 120 individuals corresponding to the 120 places in Israel’s Parliament (legislature) called the Knesset. Who gets on the party List and where on the List is a matter on internal party policy and politics. In some parties it is now fashionable to conduct a primary permitting the entire party membership to vote. In some parties the functionaries who constitute the party’s Central Committee, anywhere between several hundred to several thousand, conduct a vote among themselves. In the religious parties the Head Rabbi or Council of Sages decides who is a candidate and which candidates get a position on the party List that gives the individual a realistic possibility of winning a seat in the Knesset.

A candidate’s position on the party List is determined according to the number of votes the candidate receives. Normally a number of positions on the party’s List are "reserved.” They will be allocated to special individuals, the party Chairperson and Big Name personalities believed to be able to attract voters. Each party knows, at least theoretically, how many votes it will receive. Thus it has a realistic idea of how many of the 120 seats the party will win. If the party will receive only enough votes to have the top 4 individuals on its List elected, being one of the individuals between numbers 5 and 120 on the party’s List is purely symbolic.

The most prominent consequence of voting for a party and not for individuals, is that the officials elected feel neither individually accountable nor responsible, and certainly not answerable to the electorate for Government actions or inaction. The Government is a faceless collective entity. Certainly those elected are not beholding to the folks who elected them. They are unresponsive and generally will not even meet with "the public.” The public is ignored. The public has no control, no redress. Only the Knesset has the authority to dissolve itself or to vote "No Confidence” in the Government and bring about general elections earlier than every four (4) years as the Basic Law mandates.

The Israeli electoral system is deliberately designed so that the public does not have an elected representative. They have no one to vote out of office, no one to change if they do not like what the government is doing. There is no such person, no such representative, just an amorphous party. The will of the People is not part of the Government’s decision-making equation.

A consequence of there always being more than a dozen parties running Lists of candidates for election to the Knesset is that a single party has never achieved a majority. The Israeli Government has always been formed from a coalition of political parties. In the USA the Executive Branch of government is the President and the Administration that the President appoints from among trusted and loyal individuals, men and women who share and support the President’s agenda. In Israel the Executive Branch is the Prime Minister and the Ministers who constitute "the Government.”

The leader of the party receiving the most votes in the election is asked to form a Government and if successful becomes the Prime Minister. Sometimes the Prime Minister is elected by popular vote. Whichever the case, the Government must be formed with enough parties to constitute a majority of the 120 Members of the Knesset. So begins weeks of deal-making resulting in written (and impermissible unwritten) agreements that detail what each party receives for entering the Coalition, each party’s obligations as a Coalition member and the issues on which the party need not vote in favor of the Coalition position. In return for joining the Coalition parties demand and receive government ministries to which they appoint their leadership as Ministers. They also demand and receive enormous amounts of tax dollars to fund their pork-barrel (excuse the term) projects.

In the end every Government is comprised of a larger and larger number of Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Deputy Prime Ministers, Vice Prime Ministers and other invented titles entitling one to an impressive salary, munificent pension, office with a staff and budget and all the other accoutrements befitting a high-ranking government office holder. But there is no unanimity, no mutual goal nor singleness of purpose within the Government. Just the opposite is true. Actually the idea of such a form of governance is dysfunctional by definition.

The only commonality among the parties that form the Government is their desire to defeat one another in the next election. Each party begins working to that end the instant they take their seat in the Cabinet. They do not work together. They work to screw-over one another. In truth I have observed that the Government functions according to a straightforward philosophy; it is better that nothing get accomplished than one of the other parties succeeds at doing something.

The Prime Minister is generally able to ride ruff-shod over the Coalition. Ministers are loath to give up their spoils. Not always. Especially not when there are elections on the way and the Ministers know their cushy jobs are up for grabs. Here is a prime example.

The entire collective of parties that constitute the current Government, formed and run by the Kadima Party, has repeatedly voted to respond "harshly,” to every Hamas violation of Israel’s unilaterally declared cease-fire in the recent war against the terror organization in the Gaza Strip. As Minister of Defense in the Government, Ehud Barak, Chairman of the Labor Party, himself a candidate for Prime Minister, controls the IDF. He believes it better (for Israel or for his own candidacy - who knows) to respond way too little and way too late (visa-vis the Cabinet decision) to the Hamas rockets and mortars and snipers and command detonated IEDs that continue to make life hell for the residents of Israel from just south of Tel Aviv to Beer Sheva. So the Israeli response to continuing Hamas attacks is to drop a bomb on a smuggling tunnel or to bomb several tunnels. Not what the Cabinet repeatedly, vociferously directed should be Israel’s response, especially when there are Israelis being wounded. But it is election time.

When it comes to the dysfunction that besets the government ministries, no one is in control. Each ministry is its own little fiefdom and wars against all others, even those with a Minister from the same party. Everyone is a political rival. It is a minor miracle that the government ever manages to get anything done. Here is an example.

A committee comprised of the Ministers and highest ranking officials from the Ministries of Justice, Internal Security (Police) and Interior spent significant time drafting and getting enacted a law transferring responsibility for all civilian licensing and possession of firearms from the Interior Ministry to the Ministry of Internal Security. There was a law passed, approved and published in the official government publication for new laws. In essence all that needed to happen was that the name on the door for the firearms licensing and oversight office was to change from Interior to Internal Security. The law’s effective date has long since come and gone. The law has never been put into effect. Interior decided the responsibility and employees were to be transferred to Internal Security, but no one said anything about the portion of Interior’s budget devoted to firearms supervision. Internal Security refused to accept the new responsibility without the budget. The Ministry of Finance said, "Screw you both, not my responsibility.” So to this day the law is simply ignored.

Israel’s Legislative Branch of government is the 120 seat Knesset. By in large it is an appendage of the Government. It does nary little legislating on its own. Legislating is more often the function of the Government (Cabinet). The Knesset has lots of committees. Theoretically the committees oversee much of the government’s operation. But like Rodney Dangerfield, they get no respect. Often those requested to appear or summoned to appear before a Knesset Committee don’t. When legislation is enacted, including providing for necessary funding, the Ministry of Finance may simply refuse to fund the legislation. Period.

The Knesset does have its own TV network. If one watches when the Knesset is in session, so few Members of Knesset are present that one might rightly demand an explanation as to why being a Member of the Knesset isn’t a no-show job. Truth is that if it wasn’t for the sumptuous manner in which the Members of Knesset provide for themselves, you might not be able to find anyone who would consider being an "MK” because of the embarrassment. Really, no one wants his child to have to admit, "My daddy is a Member of Knesset.”

Next is Israel’s Judiciary Branch, most importantly a Supreme Court that appears to model itself and its jurisdiction on that established for itself by the United States Supreme Court. The Israeli Supreme Court hears direct, first impression issues concerning Government and government actions. The Court’s review of the Executive and Legislative branches of government, its acting as the "last word,” has resulted in a bitter war between the Executive and the Judiciary. Kadima appointed a Minister of Justice whose main goal has been to introduce and pass legislation significantly limiting and curtailing the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to review Government actions and legislation. That legislation is pending. In the meantime it is not unusual for the various government ministries to simply ignore adverse Supreme Court decisions.

The lower courts in Israeli’s Judiciary could serve as poster boy for Justice Delayed is Justice Denied. Israeli Courts do not start and finish a trial without interruption. They hear a case, half a day here and half a day there. A trial can and does take years. In addition the courts are massively backlogged. One may argue that the Israeli lower courts are non-functional because of the delays. Much of the population believes that there is no legal redress for injustice because there is not reasonable timeframe in which a case will be concluded and a decision will be handed down. Too many Israeli citizens see the legal process as abysmal and would concur that Israel lacks the Rule of Law.

Now perhaps one begins to understand why as many as 35 percent of Jewish Israelis will boycott next week’s election. For Prime Minister they can vote for either of two individuals who profess to have learned the error of their ways from their previous disastrous term as Prime Minister or for a candidate who is one of those directly responsible for losing the Second Lebanon War and now the Gaza War, but refuses to admit or learn from her continuing errors. Making the choice as to which of the three is the lesser evil is too much for too many of us.

There is also the opportunity to vote for a party. But once again the fundamental question is, "Why Bother?” Israelis have come to realize that if the lips of one of their office seekers are moving, the candidate is lying. Candidates say whatever it takes, whatever the pollsters tell them the public wants to hear, wants to believe. Once in office they are untouchable. They can do whatever they please. So they do whatever they please. Change is not possible. If there were a way to effect real change in the party system do you think any of the three candidates presently running for Prime Minister would be a candidate?

Yes I am extraordinarily cynical. But like many Israelis I have good reason for being so. I have been a student of Israeli politics since Rabin’s assassination. Most recently I became involved in the electoral process because I wanted to help bring about change. Specifically I wanted an administration more responsible to the electorate. I supported a candidate for political office, working diligently to get person’s party elected. My work achieved the desired result. Guess what?

The personal promises I received to my face turned into so much "smelly hot air” with 24 hours of the election results confirming victory for the party I worked to put in office. The office seeker, now office holder, is "prohibited,” that’s right, "prohibited from having private conversations.” I am not allowed, without a chaperon, to have a conversation with the person I helped put in office. Not a wonderful experience, but the more painful the lesson, the longer it is remembered. Believe me, when the commitments are discarded like so much garbage, when there is refusal to even meet, one’s pain and frustration is less if you did not vote for the folks who now treat you as if you are worthless.