There was something normal about watching Israel’s outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett raise his glass and offer a toast for success to the incoming, interim new Prime Minister Yair Lapid, following the decision of the Israeli Parliament to disband and proceed to new elections. Admittedly, there is certainly a poignancy that the Israeli democracy is so broken that it is headed for its fifth snap election in four years. This occurs despite the fact that the now retiring government actually had a “long” productive one-year term. In contrast to what the United States experienced and continues to be reliving every day, however, Israel’s transfer of power was seamless.
Admittedly, the new Israeli Government will be chosen after the just scheduled elections on November 1. Then, a new coalition government will take power after the head of one of the leading parties in the elections successfully cobbles together a new governmental coalition.
In fact, the current Israeli electoral system remains broken. It operates in ways which are reminiscent of the petty fights which Jews have been having since the renaissance of Jewish nationalism and the growth of the Zionist movement in the last third of the 19th Century. Already at the first Zionist Congress convened by Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, in Basal, Switzerland in August 1897, world-wide attendees were unable to agree on one strategy to proceed in their agreed upon desire to create a renewed national home and state for the Jewish people.
On the one hand, one must consider that the outgoing Government consisted of Members from eight parties and at its strongest only controlled a guaranteed 61 of the 120 seats in the Knesset. On the other hand, this Government might be a harbinger for a change in the Israeli electoral system and a possible new direction in Israeli politics. It was a government ideologically diverse (left to right), consisting of no Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) members, and including (for the first time) an Israeli Arab Party. Its ability to function was remarkable and extremely surprising. Perhaps, that is what made the symbolic toast of power transfer by Bennett to Lapid so encouraging for Israeli electoral politics. (Even the fact that Lapid will now lead the Israeli Government when President Joe Biden makes his anticipated visit to Israel was not a political stumbling block for the continued functioning of the country.)
As Israel proceeds to new elections, current law requires that any party seeking to enter the Parliament must receive at least 3.25% of the vote to be entitled to representation. While small parties fight desperately to achieve this threshold—it was raised from 2% to 3.25% in 2014—these minor parties traditionally are power brokers in a leader’s quest for a majority of Members to form a new Government. If this approach could be addressed creatively, a true revolution in Israeli politics—raising the threshold and/or creating single member districts—might evolve. These reforms which were proposed politically most effectively in the late 1970’s by Yigal Yadin and his DASH party, have never really been transformed into the desired goals of making the Israeli multi-party system more functional.
On a personal leadership level, much of Israel remains enamored with the “cult of personality” style politics personified by Binyamin Netanyahu. Having fashioned himself much like his American model, Donald Trump, Bibi has sought to move Israeli politics to a much more authoritarian model of political leadership. American democracy continues to endure as it even contemplates a return of this model under a second presidency of Donald Trump. So, too, Israel is now at a threshold where the possibility of a return of Netanyahu to power as the head of a new Government after the election is a distinct possibility.
Israel’s political problems are very different from those facing the U.S. and so are its national security questions. As functioning democratic systems, however, both countries face serious, albeit somewhat different challenges. In Israel the model exemplified by Bennett and Lapid throughout the past year was highly educative for the Israeli population to consider. While these leaders emerged from very different political bases, they successfully placed the national interest and goals ahead of their partisan interests. The fact that they could not keep some of their own party members in line or the coalition together underscores the need for electoral reform. Netanyahu last spring and now Bennett left office after the votes were not there to continue to lead the Government. This is something former President Donald Trump and his minions continue to be unable to accept.
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