Letter to the Editor: Toby F. Block

Letter to the Editor,

When Both Sides are ‘Pro-Israel’

Dave Schechter described Israel’s electoral system as “convoluted.” As most Americans are not familiar with Parliamentary governance, I would like to offer some thoughts on Israel’s electoral process and how it might be improved.

Israel is the size of New Jersey. Its national government consists of a 120-seat Parliament (Knesset) and a Supreme Court. The country is not divided into electoral districts and each eligible voter participates in national elections by choosing one of numerous party lists. Thus, all Knesset seats are filled “at large” (there are no contests involving direct competition of two or more candidates seeking to represent a specific locality).

A party must reach the election threshold (receive a specified percentage of the total number of votes cast) in order to earn seats in the Knesset. No party has ever received a true majority (61 seats) on its own. Thus, every Israeli government has been a coalition, cobbled together post-election. Thus, the actual make-up of the government often differs significantly from what voters thought they were being offered on Election Day. Furthermore, because parties are easily formed and easily dissolved, voters really have no way to hold parties accountable for keeping promises made on the campaign trail.

In the first 40 years following Israel’s rebirth, elections generally produced results in which a single party gained 50 or more votes and could easily assemble a ruling coalition by joining forces with a party that had 10 or 15 seats, with the head of the larger party becoming the Prime Minister (PM). Such a coalition was likely to serve a full four-year term. If a policy dispute arose which caused the smaller party to decide to move to the Opposition, the larger party could easily find a new partner.

In the 1990s, Israel twice experimented with direct election of the Prime Minister. Voters cast two ballots – one indicating the voter’s choice of party list and the other designating the voter’s choice of one of two candidates for the PM’s office. This experiment freed Israeli voters to choose lists unlikely to garner many Knesset seats without losing their opportunity to have input on the choice of Prime Minister. The experiment was ruled a failure and was not continued.

In the subsequent three decades, no single party has controlled many more than one-quarter of the Knesset’s 120 seats and no coalition has held significantly more than the simple (61-seat) majority. The coalition that preceded the current Knesset was made up of eight parties, with the largest party controlling only 17 seats. In the current, “more stable” government, the largest party controls only 32 seats with three other parties holding a total of another 32 seats. Such coalitions are always in danger of falling if only a few members choose to leave the Coalition, giving small parties inordinate power within the Coalition. Knowing that their terms in office may be short (Israel had five elections in the past four years), Coalitions tend to try to push their agendas through too quickly, as seems to be the case with the initial effort (now delayed) for judicial reform.

Perhaps even more than judicial reform, Israel needs electoral reform. Smaller parties with similar ideas should be encouraged to coalesce into larger, more stable bodies with the new (and, hopefully, improved) parties required to deliver their platforms to the electorate and to obtain a specified number of voters’ signatures (perhaps 10,000) in order to be allowed to stand for election. Parties should also be required to engage in public debates which would be followed by polling to determine each party’s chances of reaching the election threshold. If a party is found unlikely to attain sufficient votes (after two or three debates), it would be barred from participating in the current election but could try once again after the newly elected Knesset had completed its term.

Toby F. Block, Atlanta