How our system helps our enemies

In today's Jerusalem Post, you can find a prime example of why those trying to destroy Israel from within favor the current proportional system over a majoritarian one.

In "Dismantle Israel's tyranny of the majority," Shawki Khatib advocates the "Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel," a set of principles published by the "High Follow-Up Committee of the Arabs in Israel" and the National Committee for the Heads of the Local Arab Councils in Israel.

Khatib and others, including some of the nominal Jewish elite in Israel, declare the need of a "consensual system." Well, there is no such animal. Politics is about decisionmaking and when you decide in favor of one thing, you are inevitably deciding against something else. This doesn't mean that compromise or win-win situations are not possible; these are possible and usually desirable. It does mean that certain values in a national democracy are be paramount and that some decisions will make some people unhappy.

Khatib bemoans the lack of civil equality. For him, "civil equality" entails the right of a minority to set up its own separate civil society or government. Khatib and the other signatories are demanding self-determination within the borders of Israel.This is simply unacceptable. True "civil equality" exists when members of minorities have as much right to access the symbols of the government as do members of the majority. Civil equality does not entail a minority carving out its own separate rules and regulations while demanding special access to national resources. Minorities all over the world face the choice of either accepting the civil culture of the majority in the public sphere and enjoying its benefits, or of shutting itself off and facing the results of removing itself from the mainstream.

In truth, Shawki Khatib is not promoting a defense of a minority within the system. Israel's democracy has provided its Arab citizens with equal and adequate access to the legal and material resources under the stewardship of the government. What is being promoted, in different language, is the subjugation of the majority against its own will and against its own interests. This is known as the Tyranny of the Minority.

Our proportional system of legislative representation encourages and fuels this type of tyranny. It does so by preventing a popular national majority from taking form. When the popular vote in a proportional system is divied up by interest groups, no electoral majority can make itself felt. In Israel's case, it damages the national identity and is exploited by groups who wish the Jewish State to disappear. Healthy democracies know how to recognize the tyranny of the minority; they are also aware of the importance of confronting it.