A Lesson in Succession

Last week, Kadima members voted in a party election to see who would succeed Ehud Olmert, who resigned from the office of Prime Minister. Tzipora Livni won the election and, unless early general elections are called, will run the government for the next 18 months. Roughly 50,000 party members voted to see who would lead a "democratic" nation of 7.3 million; that's less than 1% of the population, less than 2% of eligible voters.

This was consistent with the rules of this travesty that we call a democracy in Israel because the underlying political philosophy is collectivist. Individuals are not elected, parties are. Parties appoint legislators to represent party interests. Individuals don't lead; parties lead. Therefore, technically, no succession was necessary. Of course, de-facto, individuals wield power within Israeli political collectives. The understanding is that the leader of a party that wins the right to form the government becomes the Prime Minister. Thus, when Prince Ehud of the Fat Envelopes resigned, the party collective had replaced him in a way that suited the interests of the party collective, not the public of voting citizens.

The quality of leadership within a system is reflected in its rules of succession. For less than 2% of a population to choose its nation's chief executive is an embarrassing joke on democratic principles. When compared to the rules of succession of the President of the United States, last week's Kadima vote seems worthy of a banana republic.

In the United States, there is never a situation in which a chief executive is directly appointed by a party elite or from a limited primary within a party, unlike the travesty we just witnessed in Israel. When a President cannot continue in his duties, he is succeeded according to the following order of succession.

1. Vice President
2. Speaker of the House of Representatives
3. President pro tempore of the Senate
4. Secretary of State
5. Secretary of the Treasury
6. Secretary of Defense
7. Attorney General
8. Secretary of the Interior
9. Secretary of Agriculture
10. Secretary of Commerce
11. Secretary of Labor
12. Secretary of Health and Human Services
13. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
14. Secretary of Transportation
15. Secretary of Energy
16. Secretary of Education
17. Secretary of Veterans Affairs
18. Secretary of Homeland Security

There are clear constitutional principles behind this ordering. Because U.S. citizens vote for President and Vice-President (VP) as one ticket, there is a civic understanding that the VP, as first in line, represents the principles and policies of the popularly elected executive administration. Also, because of this, the VP actually takes on the title of "President" and appoints a new Vice-President, subject to the approval of Congress. In such a situation, the administration continues to the end of the original term.

In cases of "dual vacancy" (i.e., removal of both President and VP,) successors DO NOT attain the title of President but of "Acting President." Any scenario in which both President and Vice-President would be removed (health, impeachment, assassination, other coincidences) constitutes a time of a "caretaker" administration in a national emergency. Dual vacancies result in a special presidential election held the following November (unless the vacancies occurred after the first Wednesday in October, in which case the election would occur the following year; or unless the vacancies occurred within the last year of the presidential term, in which case the next election would take place as regularly scheduled).

The constitution discourages authorizing the chief executive to appoint a successor who has not been popularly, individually elected. So, after the VP, the next two in line are NOT members of the executive cabinet (who were appointed by the President), but rather the popularly elected senior members of the majority parties of the two houses of Congress, who represent the majority will of the people in lawmaking. Note that if the current Republican-affiliated President and Vice-President become unable to serve, the next two in line of presidential succession (Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and President pro tempore of the Senate Robert Byrd) happen to be from the rival Democratic Party! Remember, though, that any such succession would be very temporary and considered a "caretaker" measure in a time of national emergency.

The U.S. rules of Presidential succession are an impressive example of respecting the will of the people while responsibly ensuring a continuity of governmental functioning. We can attain the same high standard of public service if we push through the right reforms.

Friedmann Gets It. Really.

Once again, the Israeli legal elite is upset with Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann for reminding them that their circle is not the incarnation of a modern Israeli monarchy. Friedmann has proposed a law to revise and split the current duties of the office of attorney-general into two separate positions: legal adviser to the government and chief prosecutor.

For the first time in Israel, the proposed law will restrict the powers of the legal adviser, who has enjoyed an effective veto of executive policy decisions through his own legal interpretation. Ever eager to defend the legal elite's ambition to rule, Attorney General Menahem Mazuz warned that if the government is not forced to abide by the opinion of the legal adviser to the government, no minister will have to abide by the legal opinion of the advisers in his ministry. Well, is this not the point of executive discretion and responsibility? The public elects leaders, not legal advisors, to actually lead, don't we?

In a familiar chorus, Mazuz wailed that the law would cause the whole structure of the rule of law to collapse. No, Menny, due process prevents that. The government will still be sued and the courts will still be called upon to adjudicate the legality of policy on occasion. The key difference is that governmental adversaries will actually have to mount a legal argument. No, Menny, the judiciary does not have the right to neutralize the public's mandate of its elected leaders and representatives.

Government as a clearly-defined service bureaucracy to a democratically empowered - and empowering - public. Friedmann gets it. Mazuz, who is trying to preserve rule by legal fiat, clearly does not.

Demagoguery's Terrible Deal

Many of Israel's influentials, politicians and pundits, have declared that last week's exchange of murderers for corpses was some sort of moral victory for Israel. Some declare that the decision was "uniquely Israeli" because of some convoluted connection to our responsibility to our soldiers. What utterly hollow euphemisms.

The deal mortgaged the future safety and lives of soldiers and civilians, who will be the targets of kidnapping and slaughter by an unrepentant Samir Kuntar, his sponsors, his colleagues in terror, and perhaps generations of jihadist-indoctrinated youth. We ruined the processes of deligitimizing and neutralizing of Hizbullah which were necessary to reduce the group's popularity and to help Lebanon break free of Syrian-Iranian hegemony. We greatly reduced the chances that the abducted soldier Gilad Schalit will return home alive. So, which moral values did Israel serve?

Did the deal value human life? Not for Israel. Hizbullah chief Hassan Nassrallah demonstrated more respect for the lives of his fighters. When Israel negotiated without insisting on "proof of life," the lives of the kidnapped stopped being the crucial element in the negotiation. When we made kidnapping a profitable enterprise for our enemies, returning their able, motivated fighters for Israeli corpses, we declared that Israeli blood – past, present, and future - is cheap; on the other hand, we'll pay handsomely for the bones.

Did Israel honor her soldiers? Some senior commanders asserted that they could not turn down the Hizbullah deal and still ask solders to follow them into battle. If conscripts didn't feel that Israel would pay any price, including terrorist demands, to retrieve them dead or alive, went the argument, conscripts wouldn't serve with the dedication they do now. Such a statement is an insulting libel to the young men and women who who declare their willingness to endanger their lives for Israel's safety. The terrible sacrifices paid by Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were not honored by freeing the willing confederates of those who killed them. No; this deal had nothing to do with patriotism or with honoring military service.

One concept highlighted by the exchange was Israeli (i.e., Jewish) victimhood. Commentators remarked on the asymmetric stakes: the sympathetic lever that brought strong Israel to her knees. However, while Israel might enjoy some short-lived sympathy, Hizbullah was the winner of greater respect and legitimacy. Living things perceive differences between healthy organisms and sick ones. While Hizbullah is reviled as a torch-bearer for oppressive, Jihadist Islam, steeped in misogyny and totalitarianism, this deal arguably served its nefarious interests. Israel's sanctimony of superior civility doesn't garner much admiration when our actions are so self-damaging. Before long, most of the world, except for the Jihadists, will forget the images of Nasrallah and the Lebanese celebrating the release of a monster. It will refocus on the convenient scapegoat to ingratiate itself with the provider of the next barrel of oil.

Israel couldn't turn the deal down, remarked analysts, because if they did Hizbullah would not allow "closure" from the Second Lebanese War. Some closure. Hizbullah's arsenal of missiles is larger than ever and includes Iranian missiles capable of reaching the Negev. "No price is to great," declared Israel's elites of demagoguery. "We must do this for the families of the kidnapped, even if it's just to give them something to bury." And what of the families of kidnapped soldiers to come? "We'll deal with the future in the future," they replied, ignoring rational, burning concerns.

Therein lies the real root of Israel's problems. As long as the empowered reap political gains, Israel's political system is designed to provide instant gratification. Our officials are not chosen for long-term solutions; they are not chosen for integrity; they are not even chosen for their experience. They are chosen for short term remediation, for championing trendy causes celebre, for reciting simple catch-phrases that Israelis are told by their media that they want now. Ehud Olmert was desperate for the kind of headlines that helped him at least postpone a denouement from his scandals, the fallout from which is very close to terminating his political career.

We needed a leader to tell Karnit Goldwasser, gently, that while we sympathized with her we could not exchange bloodthirsty terrorists for what we confidently believed were corpses. The strength to act in this way has its roots in integrity, a quality our officials won't have until we are able to select them for it. We have to stop empowering patronizing demagogues; we must institute a system of elections with direct representation that lets us select talented, accountable individuals.

There was no moral victory here, no "uniquely Israeli" resolution that strengthened us through some dilemma of higher conscience. A combination of shameless demagoguery and moral bankruptcy on the part of Israel's political elite prostrated the country before one of its most brutal and evil foes.

Happy 4th of July – To America and the Jewish People

So, why should Israelis and Jews all over the world commemorate the date that thirteen American colonies declared their independence, as the United States, from England? It's not just the billions of dollars in aid Israel receives from Uncle Sam every year.

Already hailed as a milestone of essential scholarship, Michael Oren's recent work, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America and the Middle East, 1776 to the Present, relates some astounding links between the Jewish people and the United States. The Puritans who came to America from Europe, "conceived themselves as the new Jews and the New World as the New Canaan." In an interview, Oren elaborated, "That immediately established a sense of kinship between them and the old Jews and the old Promised Land. Since then, many Protestants in the United States have seen it as their religious and national duty to help fulfill God’s promises to rescue the Jews from exile and repatriate them to their ancestral homeland." Oren also points out that in 1844, the head of New York University’s bible department, George Bush, a direct ancestor of two American presidents of the same name, wrote The Valley of Visions, a bestseller urging the United States to take a leading role in recreating a Jewish state in the land of Israel.

In Old World Europe,attempts at self-government were subject to the whims of monarchs and potentates; the value of human life was not a universal truism. The United States of America was founded on the basis that people are essentially good and capable of self-government, that individuals can make a difference in making the world a better or worse place. Israel and America share a mission to be a beacon of life-affirming values beyond their borders.

America does not have an unblemished record - there have been cases of institutional anti-semitism; Jonathan Pollard still sits in a maximum security prison. However, in its 230 year history, America has overwhelmingly been a blessing to the Jewish people. Jews were welcomed as full citizens in the newborn United States and, in 1790, George Washington addressed the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, as follows.

"May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."

Washington proved to be farsighted. Proud Jews, including Senator Joe Lieberman and NY Assemblyman Dov Hilkind, have influenced American politics at every level. Beyond that, Jewish culture has thrived and become a vital part of mainstream American culture.

As the founders in the United States were inspired by the Jewish people, let's hope that Israel can be inspired to live by America's founding principles of good governance. Shelanu proposes individually electing all legislators as sole representatives of their districts. We support a presidential executive system, completely separate from the legislature (Knesset), that places efficient and effective public service above the kind of sectarian patronage that characterizes Israel's ministerial appointments. These mechanisms, complementary and firmly rooted in principles of individual accountability and citizen sovereignty, have proven themselves over time, in the United States as a whole and in governments as small as the state of Rhode Island. They work because they're built on simple, solid principles which reward individual excellence and consider individual citizens to be the most basic unit of political influence.

Order your t-shirts today! See the post from earlier today.

T-Shirt Campaign

This month, we unveil our very first fundraising effort as a non-profit organization with a t-shirt campaign. Provocative and direct, with our icon produced exclusively by Studio Spinner, these shirts were designed to get people thinking and talking. Take a look at the new design on our web site at

http://www.directrepisrael.org/EN/Stuff.shtml

For a donation of NIS 100 ($30), to Shelanu, you will receive our brand new, redesigned t-shirt. Additional t-shirts can be purchased for NIS 50 ($15) apiece. Please specify t-shirts size(s) as well as contact information (including telephone, mailing address, and email address if possible).

Donations may be made by check or by bank transfer.

By check:
Make checks out to "Shelanu, Meitanu, Avureinu" and send to:
Shelanu
c/o Michael Jaffe
17 HaPalmach Street
P.O. Box 1228
Zichron Yaakov, 30900 ISRAEL
With your check, please include a note with t-shirt size(s), telephone, and mailing address information.

By bank transfer:
Bank of Jerusalem (Israeli Bank #054)
Branch #030
Account #300054210
Bank transfers orders: please call or email us with t-shirt size(s), telephone, and mailing address information

How to contact us:
Email: jmichaeljaffe@directrepisrael.org
Phone: From Israel 04-6398160, From outside Israel +972-4-6398160.
Fax: From Israel 153-4-6398160, From outside Israel +972-153-4-6398160.
Skype ID: jmjaffe
(We cannot accept collect calls at this time.)

Where does the money go?

• Maintenance of our web site
• Legal and administrative fees of establishing and maintaining a non-profit status
• Design and production of educational materials about effective democracy
• Communication costs for publicizing Shelanu
• Planning and producing upcoming events, including our first nationwide general meeting and educational seminars

As a new organization, we must attain a certification, known as a Form 46, that allows us access to many granting institutions. Shelanu should receive this certification over the course of the year, but only if we start with the preliminary support of individuals like you. If you want to make a difference to make Israel stronger, more secure, and more prosperous, there is no better way than helping to heal her democracy.

The Highjacking of Sentiment

The Israeli public simply does not know how to speak up for itself. And the stakes are nothing short of existential. The latest outrage is the mass prisoner release of a thousand terrorists including one of the most bloodthirsty and dangerous animals ever to be captured by Israel, Samir Kuntar.

In 1979, Kuntar, accompanied by three other terrorists, shot 28-year-old Danny Haran in the head, killing him in front of his four-year-old daughter, Einat. Kuntar then bludgeoned Einat to death against the rocks on Nahariya's beachfront. Danny's wife, Smadar Haran, was able to hide in a crawl space above the bedroom of their home with her two-year-old daughter, Yael, and a neighbor. Tragically, trying to keep her infant daughter quiet while hiding from the murderers, Smadar accidentally suffocated Yael . Kuntar has spent the last 29 years in Israeli prisons, and has never stopped bragging about his brutal atrocity.

Kuntar and his ilk, walking time bombs of murderous terror, are being given their freedom in exchange for the corpses of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The message for Hamas? No need to keep Gilad Schalit alive. Israel will pay a premium just to get corpses back. The message for kidnapping? Oh, how it pays! Jewish blood? Cheap. Jewish bones? These will give you influence. These will free your murderers.

It's hard to identify the more contemptible in this episode. 22 cabinet members proved too weak-willed or demagogic to sympathetically but firmly stand up to the families of the kidnapped - and protect the rest of us. Then there is the prime minister, who waited to ascertain which way the political winds blew, who waited for the large majority of the cabinet to make their choices, before voicing his support for the swap. Either way, Ehud Olmert is no leader and has no business making critical decisions that will have repercussions - deadly repercussions - on those who will be kidnapped and those who will be blown apart by missiles. There is no doubt that Hizbullah, Hamas, Fatah, Al-Qaeda, and Iran will be emboldened.

So many of us flew the flags bearing the faces of Goldwasser, Regev, and Schalit on our cars. How many of us thought that our moral support for these kidnapped victims would be exploited and rechanneled into a political sham that rewards terrorism and ultimately puts us all in much greater danger?

To Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, Haim Ramon, Ehud Barak, Shaul Mofaz, Eliyahu Yishai, Ariel Atias, Ruhama Avraham Balila, Ami Ayalon, Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Yacov Ben-Izri, Yitzhak Cohen, Avi Dichter, Jacob Edery, Rafi Eitan, Gideon Ezra, Isaac Herzog, Raleb Majadele, Meshulam Nahari, Meir Sheetrit, Shalom Simhon, and Yuli Tamir: You voted to free murderers who declared that they will murder again. You violated every standard of propriety and responsibility to defend this land and its citizens. You are not worthy to make any claim to leadership or to authority. When the next soldier or civilian is kidnapped, it will be your fault as much as any of the actual perpetrators. YOU let them know that their strategy of murder and psychological torment works. You have opted for popularity over duty, political expediency over responsibility. You could not face down the families, the press, the short-sighted. You are abject failures as representatives of our interests and have earned any agony that this decision will cause you.

To the parents and spouses who demanded that Israel pay any price for your peace of mind. You condemned future Israeli lives not for the lives of your loved ones, but for their bones. To gain closure, you became the mouthpieces of their murderers as you relegated other parents and spouses to the same unspeakable hell you have endured. Yes, you were in pain when you did this, you were weak from psychological agony. But you must have known that you were being played. Your part in appeasing the kidnappers has insulted the legacy of your loved ones. Unfortunately, history will remember them as unwilling and passive pawns in this tragic and cowardly action.

To Roni Bar-On, Ze'ev Boim, and Daniel Friedmann. Thank you for voting against this terrible blunder. You were the few in the cabinet who showed the presence of mind and the integrity that your positions in government demanded. And yet I am convinced that most Israelis realize, as do you, the catastrophe this deal constitutes, to assuage today's morbid grief at the cost of tomorrow's lethal barbarity.

Unfortunately, our system of government as a whole, with its basis in proportional representation, does not respect the concept of serving, and in this case protecting, any general public. It is rooted in the mediocre concept of cynically manipulating interest groups with a prime directive of amassing political power for power's sake.

Definition of "clueless"; see "Livni"

The more the Israeli political elite opens its collective mouth in mock self-criticism, the more it proves how clueless are its members about true democracy. Tzipora Livni's pronouncements at Tel Aviv University last Monday ("Livni: Israel on quick path to anarchy," Jerusalem Post, 23 June 2008) provided a memorable example.

Livni astutely bemoaned the public's "collective feeling that demonstrates a lack of public faith in elected officials." Had she stopped there, she would have merely placed herself in the company of demagogic politicians who state the obvious in order to gain popularity points. But she felt compelled to venture outside the confines of reason by adding her prescription for restoring public faith. "The elected official must get to know his office, to talk with the office workers, to try and create reforms if change is needed."

No, Tzipi. The first step towards restoring the public's faith in its public servants is not making your office a happy place for the grunts. In a democracy, the public's faith is maintained when a clear, honest effort is made to address public concerns. The public is a lot less concerned with your office politics than it is with your accountability and your effectiveness in matters of national policy.

Political corruption and incompetence in our government stem from the disconnect of elected officials from any semblance of a public constituency. For this, we can thank proportional representation and the parliamentary executive system, which are based on the defacto foundations of Israel's governance: sectarian entitlements and party hegemony. Your own political sense, Tzipi, is so compromised that you can't perceive two democratic absolutes: the public has a right to be heard and the Israeli public should have final say over who writes their laws and executes policy.

We can rehabilitate our democratically-challenged elite by reforming our system of elections and governance with two philosophical foundations: the individual, direct accountability of every elected official to a public constituency and public service in a professional executive bureaucracy. Integrity and merit in public service, not officeplace interpersonal feng shui, restore public faith in elected officials.

Parachutes of Pyrite

A dear friend of the family asked me, "Why doesn't Olmert just take his money and retire to Florida to play golf?"

Well, why should he? From his perspective, the contempt of the people is a cheap price to pay for his acquired wealth and a prestigious position on the world stage. Once he's out, he won't be getting fat envelopes from vested interests and friendly slaps on the back from George Bush. Capitulating under a cloud would cost him the adulation of the European intelligentsia who love to hear him talk about the necessity of a Palestinian state. Also, I think he's holding out for the best golden parachute he can get. At some point, Kadima will probably negotiate a deal with him, letting him resign without prosecution and minimizing the damage he might otherwise do to the party. For the damage he's done to this country, I hope his golden parachute turns out to be pyrite (the geological name for "fool's gold").

It's almost entertaining to watch the next powerball wannabes, including the clueless Tziporah Livni and the bumbling Ehud Barak, carve into Olmert's not-quite-expired political carcass. They exhibited no such indignation when rank opportunism had them hitching their careers to Olmert's briefly shooting star right when he, following Ariel Sharon, raped the Likud and the entire Israeli democratic system. It still amazes me how this parliamentary system tolerated Sharon jettisoning the Likud, rather than the converse, and retaining the reins of executive office. Kadima was born out of the valueless excesses of the nearly-indicted and the power-hungry, and it feels good to see them losing political ground.

Unfortunately, the prospects for real improvement in Israeli politics are not very compelling. Nothing will improve significantly until Israel changes its system of government and elections. As long as the proportional system prevents a mainstream majority from forming, parties will continue to play for power at the expense of national security and integrity and politicians will evade individual accountability. As long as coalition leeches demand payment for holding a government together, a leader with true integrity and grit has little staying power. That reality is what makes Shelanu's mission so vital.

Yesterday, we took another step forward by completing most of the paperwork to establish our account with Bank of Jerusalem.

Sycophants and Scoundrels

It's interesting to contrast the political events and forces at work in the United States and in Israel. In the United States, a three-way slugfest continues among John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton to see who is most presidential, a question that seems to boil down to who can avoid thrusting his feet halfway down his throat. Questions of propriety aren't even being floated at this point. Hillary told a tall tale about a visit to Bosnia; Obama confused his uncle with his great-uncle, who liberated Buchenwald, not Auschwitz. McCain has had his share of gaffes. And, still, these three rivals do their utmost to not only manage their affairs, but to maintain an image of individual propriety.

In Israel, in contrast, the bar is so much lower that it's hard to call both systems "democracy." Israel seems to be more of a "hackocracy." Key members of Kadima, as well as cabinet members, are calling for Ehud Olmert to step down. If that weren't enough, the situation gets even more ridiculous when one Kadima MK, Yoel Hasson, suggests that even if Olmert were to step down, there should not be early elections. Just how far removed is Kadima from serving the public? Pretty far, indeed, when it seeks to shred its contract with the people, its electoral empowerment, while it clings to power.

How the mighty have fallen, one may ask? No. The mighty haven't fallen. The base and craven, empowered by collectivist proportionalism, have just sunk lower.

Letter to Yechiel Leiter

A week ago, I attended a Likud Anglos event to introduce Yechiel Leiter, an up-and-comer in the Likud with some impressive kudos on his resume. He spoke about, among other topics, accountability and quality of governance. After the talk, he was asked about specific reforms. Leiter indicated that he supported a hybrid system such as that suggested by the almost-forgotten Megidor Committee. In reaction to Leiter's comment, I wrote the following letter.

============
Hello, Mr. Leiter.

Your talk in Haifa last Sunday was most informative and interesting. You briefly addressed electoral reform and mentioned your interest in the mixed proportional-plurality system proposed by the Megidor Committee, the body formed by the President's Coimmission on the Examination of the Quality of Democracy in Israel. Note that it took you longer to read the name of the committee than it took for its significance to evaporate in the Israeli mindset. The Megidor Committee's proposal was the product of 70 academic and VIP egos with conflicting interests, some of whom would not even sign off on the final recommendation. "They," or at least the influential among the committee, decided on a hybrid model, to elect half of the Knesset under the current proportional method and the other half through "direct" elections.

As a guest at the opening ceremony at the Presidential residence, I spoke with committee members; their criteria for desirable outcomes of the committee were wide-ranging, to say the least. For some, the preservation of the smaller parties was paramount. For others, the elimination of small party influence was just as important. Some valued administration stability as essential, others diversity of political outlook. Some admired an American focus on individual accountability and initiative; others, the European tradition of collective ethnic representation. Clearly there was pressure to come to some compromise in order for the committtee to function. But what was good for the committee was not the best proposal for the country. I believe the report did not reflect any coherent political theory of governance; it was the product of an operational compromise. The committee members needed something to show for the political capital and prestige invested in its own enterprise, even though a third of the committee members refused to endorse the report. It is also notable that the findings of whole subcommittees, including the subcommittee on the quality of jurisprudence, had its findings omitted from the final report. For these, and other reasons, I would not hang too much authority, or even significance, on the Megidor Committee.

To date, I have not come across a theoretically analyzed, empirically supported explanation of the merits of the committee's proposal. I have searched the web exhaustively for a publicly available explanation regarding the specifics of the proposal. Why 50/50 (or rather 60/60)? What applied principles are being served? Where was the analysis of the electoral mechanism? On what basis did those who produced the report argue that such a mix would preserve the "best" of proportionalism and majoritarianism in action?

A system of representation must be consistent in its principles of application and in its cultural values. Who is being represented? What is the criteria of quality of governance? What functional role is played by the public itself? These are not merely abstract questions; they influence criteria of selection and thereby determine the dynamics and results of every authoritative decision-making process. The influence of the public furthermore affects the commitment of the public to policy outcomes.

The proportional system measures the relative extent that a collective, a political party, should influence lawmaking and, in a parliamentary system, the execution of policy. It looks upon an election as a determination of political entitlement of separate collectives. MKs are not individually accountable to any specific constituency. They are collectively accountable to the entire nation through the mediating agency of the party. In practical terms, there is no individual accountability as there is no distinguishable constituency.

The constituent plurality system is an individual hiring process played out in public. A constituency of voters constitutes the final determinant as to who is hired to represent, to vote in its interests in the legislature. Political parties have no official standing as arbiters or intermediaries between the public and elected officials. While they facilitate the exposure of candidates to constituents, the last word regarding who will and won't represent or lead still resides with the public.

The difference between the proportional and constituency systems also reflects the perception of the public. The proportional system helps a public of separate political communities avoid having to resolve political priorities and preferences. After an election, factions negotiate and either compete or cooperate. Individual citizens prioritize their vote for either a mainstream or a narrow interest party and the party takes it from there as an empowering intermediary. In essence, the proportional system does not treat the public as a single, diverse entity but rather as a collection of artificially distinct "interests." It dominates the public through an artificial, non-representative status-quo.

The constituency system presumes that the public, while diverse, can still come to a single choice as a public regarding an election outcome. It presumes that individual citizens within the public respect the election outcome as part of a situation in which even if people disagree, they accept that they share a common destiny, that through open debate they can benefit from a heterogenous group wisdom.

In Israel, the proportional system continues to exacerbate differences, to polarize and corrode the conception of the Israeli citizenry as a single public. Interest groups naturally exploit the system for sectarian gains. As long as they are elected under a system that rewards sectarian niches, there is no reason to predict that this will change. Jabotinsky may have said, "It is good to die for your country," but in a democracy that is an incomplete statement. As proportionalism has fractionated the public into franchised narrow interests, the willingness to die for one's country has clearly been affected.

In contrast, the constituency system will shore up and bolster the concept of a shared national identity, a shared destiny. Interest groups will have to find common ground, realizing that they have little chance of influencing a winning candidate if they do not. In electing a single representative for their district, citizens consider the candidate's positions on a multitude of interests, they consider the personality and propriety of the candidate. The positions and qualities of the winning candidate most often serve as a unifying influence on the body of constituents.

Why, then, do many countries practice the propotional system? Some argue that proportionalism offers "otherwise marginalized" interests a source of influence. However, whether "otherwise marginalized" minorities actually benefit is a debatable question, as is the notion that every minute political philosophy deserves formal recognition. Some argue that proportionalism is more "consensual," that more perspectives are considered in decision-making. However, as Israel's experience makes clear, the "consensus" on many issues depends on the amount of political favors narrow interests will extort. True concensus results from the deliberation of parties who have a true vested interest in the matter at hand, not from the mutual favors of otherwise disinterested parties. Individually elected representatives in Israel will be selected for their declared stands on a wide variety of issues on the national agenda.

Much more compelling explanations for the adoption of proportional systems are that they (a) allow sub-communities to influence national policy while maintaining their political isolation, and (b) enable elites to retain their advantaged status in their respective communities within a titularly broader "democracy." For these reasons, Britain exported proportionalism to colonies abroad but opted for constituent pluralities at home. For the former reason, proportionalism is the rule in several European nations characterized by geographic-ethnic divisions. And, for the latter reason, some such "democracies" degenerate into de-facto dictatorships.

What then of the "mixed" or "hybrid" systems proposed by the Megidor Committee and others? They are political "hedges," attempts to satisfy different perspectives with the (rather baseless) hope that the result will be the "best of both worlds." They are also attempts to merge two opposing political philosophies in application.

Compromise is often a necessary and beneficial practice in legislation and policy. However, the compromise of core ideals, especially of opposing ideals, in forming a democratic institution, such as a system of representation and empowerment, can lead to unmitigated disaster. This happened fifteen years ago, when the direct election of the prime minister became conditional on retaining a coalition. Immediately after the public exercised its right to elect its chief executive, the Knesset had the power to nullify it through a no-confidence vote. The PM had direct accountability while those who would sabotage or extort his administration had none. Israeli voters had split their votes, voting large party for PM and small party for Knesset, so the coalition intrigues were further plagued by the narrowest of interests. This was the result of politically "hedging" one applied principle with in incompatible applied principle.

The Megidor Committee proposed 17 districts, each of which would be represented by 2 to 5 MKs. Voters in a district would vote for an individual candidate. In one version that I read, candidates that receive the most votes relative to their competitors would take the available slots in the direct election. Those same votes would be evaluated for the proportionally elected MKs. What if you like a candidate but are not crazy about his party? In this situation, the party still acts as mediator, not as facilitatior.

Let's say, that every voter gets two votes: one for his direct, district choice of representative, the other for his national-proportional choice. What we've done is halve the number of seats going to proportionally elected MKs, thereby reducing the number of smaller party winners. The same top-tier party list members keep their seats. So, when public sentiment goes down, who is going to get the boot? Those who've secured themselves top places on their party lists or the guy who is directly elected? As a group, then, the directly elected are at a huge disadvantage and suffer as political whipping boys within and external to their party. The influence of the individually elected will be hobbled and their ability to fulfill their individual commitments to achieve will be neutralized; and in a hybrid system they will be the first voted out. In this way, the hybrid system leaves the party elites relatively untouched, secure in their seats, ever more able to leverage their political influence as patronage. The only way a direct, constituency system works is when there is a level playing field, a uniform criteria for election and retention, for every single MK.

What does, or what should, electoral reform mean for the Likud? As you noted, an outcome of Ariel Sharon's duplicitous betrayal of his party, including the formation of Kadima, was a purging of the Likud of some less-than-savory influences. The facade of quality has fallen from Kadima's image, not that many of us were taken in from its start. The Likud is in a position of presenting a fresh face, a fresh initiative, with a stronger connection to its revisionist roots. It has an unprecedented opportunity to politically re-brand itself as a party with integrity, motivation, and vision. Part of this vision should be better government. Government made up of individually accountable public servants dedicated to public service. Hybrid proposals simply will not square with commitments to public service. Israelis either immediately understand, or are quick to realize, that the mixed solution is an accommodations to entrenched powers.

Direct representation is not just a solution to "break the bank" in terms of governing efficiency; it's a philosophical commitment to action that leaves no room for preferentially accommodating any entrenched elite or separate collective interest. A Likud that declares this, that takes this stand as a leading voice of governance via individual excellence and accountability, is a Likud that will be recognized for it. At some point, the Israeli people will attach no small value to that recognition.

On Sunday night, you mentioned Gideon Sa'ar. He might remember me from a brief conversation in Ra'anana at another Likud Anglo meeting. He spoke in English on the topic of electoral reform and someone asked him why he was undertaking such a Quixotean task. Perhaps it was some difficulty with English, or the lateness of the hour, or the unexpected question; Saar humbly replied, "I don't know." I lingered afterward to speak with him, as I did with you. I told him that his response was unacceptable. He should always be ready to state, with conviction and pride, that he works at reform because it's his task as a representative legislator to serve his country as his conscience dictates. Rehabilitating Israel's system of government is one of, if not the, most urgent tasks that he must do to serve his public with integrity. He readily agreed. It's about individual excellence and the best way to get it in government is to individually elect for it.

With admiration and hope,
Michael Jaffe
Director, "Shelanu, Me'itanu, Avureinu"

Democratic Progress and Perversion

It was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote the entry, "How Difficult Can It Be?" describing some of the complications involved in forming an amutah dedicated to our goals of individual accountability and public service among our leaders and representatives. Well, I guess a year of pushing is about how difficult it can be.

This morning, I called the registrar of NPOs (non-profit organizations) to check on our application. I was pleased to hear that our certification as been approved and the certificate was mailed out this morning. Now the clock is ticking. Time to fine tune our organizational plan, put together our marketing strategy, and "hit the mattresses," as the Corleone footsoldiers said in "The Godfather" when they prepared for battle. To start, that means fundraising.

Last Wednesday, Mordechai Kremnitzer, a fellow of the Israel Democracy Institute, proclaimed something arguably very un-democratic. He stated that referenda, putting key decisions of law and policy to a public vote, "harms democracy." Kremnitzer has clearly lost track of the concept that democracy is defined as government of the people. This means that decisions must be made and that those decisions must account for majority sentiments among the populus.

Perhaps it was the specific topic of the proposed referendum at hand, whether or not to abandon half of Jerusalem and whether or not to abandon the Golan Heights. When it comes to these crucial issues, upon which Kremnitzer's views lean decidedly left, Kremnitzer is not so willing to let the will of the people, the majority reign supreme, not unless he is assured that majority sentiment agrees with him. What goes against Kremnitzer goes against "democracy," vox populi be damned.

Kremnitzer is not the only demagogue who claims to safeguard "democracy" from being tainted by the public. Perversions of democratic values are a growth industry in the Knesset and in the courts. Due process, protections against abuses of power, and true, accountable representation have all been twisted for political gain or sectarian advantage.

We've got a big job to do and we can't afford to fail.

The veneer of democracy slips again.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, are its only safe depositories." - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781.

If only we had such men as Thomas Jefferson to inspire Israel's political practitioners. Instead, what do we have?

Arrogance. It's what Israel's political elite is serving its public for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Israel's people have become so demoralized,numbed by the neglect and excesses of its public servants. Gestures thought unthinkable in other democracies, gestures which used to be unthinkable in Israel, are now par for the course.

In a Maariv interview, Yehezkel Dror indicated, through a rhetorical question, that advancing the "peace process" with the Palestinians is more important than bringing down the Olmert regime. There was no direct linkage in that sentence with the deliberation of the Winograd Commission. However, given that the executive political echelon was left unscathed, compared to the military, it is difficult to seperate the two. The gaffe exposed the tangible possibility that political partisanship had a significant influence on the outcome of the Winograd report. This is yet another outrage that pushes aside the veneer of "Israeli democracy" and lays bare the anti-democratic machine that controls this country's political process.

Prof. Dror and I actually conversed briefly about two years ago, early on in the effort to get Direct Representation for Israel off the ground. He had written a piece urging the adoption of a presidential executive system in Israel, a goal that is part of Shelanu's credo of individual responsibility and public service excellence. Through email contacts I was got his telephone number and called him. I asked whether he might have any interest in becoming part of Direct Rep's efforts to promote a presidential system. His reply was that he had no interest in any type of public activism; his expertise was exclusively for the benefit of the influential. This resonates closely with statements from his interview in last Monday's Jerusalem Post, including the following.

I'm an elitist. Eighty percent of the critical decisions affecting Israel are shaped by maybe 100 or 200 people, 300. These are my clients.

In all large governing structures, including representative ones, power is concentrated and the average individual has little influence in the formation of policy. In healthy democracies, the spectre of public outrage deters those who would usurp the public's trust and authority. That assumes direct, personal accountability to a voting public. That happens when people vote for individuals, not for parties.

Based on Dror's comments, I can only surmise that his support of a presidential system, or some "quasi-presidential" system, reflects a different philosophy than ours. His perspective is that a presidential system will be more effective and efficient, less encumbered by narrow interests. He thinks that a presidential system "will be better at decision-making."

Well, we agree with that. So, where do we differ? We believe that there is a moral imperative for a presidential system. We believe it is needed to protect the interests of the public, that a presidential system will place individuals, empowered by a majority vote, directly accountable to the citizens. Dror has not stated that he would endorse a system of direct election of a president; given his self-proclaimed elitism, would a majoritarian plebiscite be his first choice?

A power-grabbing elite seems to typify so much of the government. They might claim to be "public servants," but to them the term means "public minder," as if the public is not really fit to decide what's in its best interests, or to choose more directly who will serve them as a single nation. It's a cynical, dishonest reflection of democracy projected through a cracked lens.

SNAFU in the MQG

The Movement for Quality Government, or MQG, does some very laudable work. They lobby the courts and other government organs to fight against abuses of power and injustices. They've acted in cases where MKs and ministers have misused funds for personal gain. However, a recent action of theirs is very, very misguided and brings into question their commitment to "quality government."

On January 3, the MQG issued a press release announcing its request to the Prime Minister to remove Prof. Daniel Friedmann from his post as Justice Minister. This was a reaction to Friedmann's recent initiative to change the manner in which high court justices are selected.

The Judicial Selection Committee consists of nine members: 3 sitting justices of the supreme court (including the president of the court), 2 cabinet ministers (including the Justice Minister), 2 Mks (one traditionally being an opposition MK), and 2 members of the Israel Bar Association. Five out of these nine are influenced professionally by the high court. Thus, in practical terms, the sitting President of the high court has a huge degree of influence in deciding who is selected to the high court bench. It's a form of self-selection; the court ends up appointing its own peers and successors with virtually no oversight. Many have pointed out that in recent years appointees have shared very similar political outlooks and, as a group, the justices may be adjudicating some cases on the basis of a political bias.

Prof. Friedmann seeks to minimize this bias by reducing the influence of sitting judges regarding who will succeed them. Under his proposal, the selection committee would be the same as before except for two changes: there would be one less high court justice and three additional committee members. The additional committee members would be a former judge, an academician appointed by the PM, and an academician appointed by the Council on Higher Learning. Friedmann also proposed search committees to gather information on prospective high court candidates. Essentially, Friedmann wants the process of selecting high court justices to be more transparent and to enable wider public participation.

MQG's response? “Prof. Friedmann's new proposal to change the manner of choosing judges is another instance of trying to harm the independence and the stature of the high court.” Well, independence to judge is not the same as omnipotence to rule. Once appointed, high court justices are not subjected to performance reviews. They may be forcibly removed if they are convicted of crimes or treason or if they become incapacitated; otherwise, they are guaranteed the post until the age of 70. One of the few ways of curtailing the high court from abusing its power is by denying its members from forming an exclusive, self-selecting club.

Is Prof. Friedmann harming the “stature” of the high court? Many in Israel feel that the court's stature has suffered from a perceived political bias and that the court has used its judicial muscle to “legislate from the bench.” Two major respected figures in American jurisprudence, Justice Robert Bork and Justice Richard Posner, have commented that the “activist” nature of Israel's high court actually has harmed its prestige. The Movement for Quality Government seems to be confusing judicial brawn for judicial brain; brute power to self-select and to commandeer authority beyond its judicial mandate does not engender respect. Restraint from activism and a respect for government "of the people" engenders democratic respect.

The MQG's statement bemoans that, under Friedmann's proposal, “the government will have a near majority presence on the selection committee, creating a situation of politicization in the choice of the judges.” With the stakes involved, there has never been a way to make the process apolitical. Judges are not immune to political bias. Under Aharon Barak, the high court became a central actor in the political arena. Politically activist in nature, it increasingly exercised a self-acquired judicial review of legislation and ventured beyond its domestic judicial mandate, even into issues of cross-border defense and foreign policy.

Friedmann's approach has not been perfect. His call to limit the scope of the court's mandate to internal judicial matters is reasonable; however, his proposal to exclude plea bargains from high court review is dangerously inappropriate. As Yitzhak Klein of the Israel Policy Center indicated, it is wrong to give any appointed official the right to make decisions about citizens' liberties without judicial checks and balances. While he does not go far enough in preventing self-selection on the high court, Friedmann's proposal on this issue is a step in the right direction. Shelanu's take is that sitting justices should have no authoritative standing in the selection of their brethren to the bench.

Regarding the judicial selection committee, the Movement for Quality Government should reacquaint itself with its self-proclaimed goal. Enhancing the quality of government is best served with mechanisms that competitively select for excellence on the one hand and check the abuse of power on the other. The judiciary is a government branch and requires the oversight of checks and balances every bit as much as the legislative and executive branches. For high court judges to have the power to select their own peers and successors, the pinnacle of the powerful judicial branch, without effective oversight, is clearly not "government of the people." It assumes that supreme court justices themselves are apolitical and immune to political influences; this is a dangerously naive assumption. The corrupting influence of absolute power applies to high court justices as well. Ignoring this imperils democratic values because it invites abuses of power; a tyranny of the judiciary tyranny nonetheless. The Movement for Quality Government should consider these words of Thomas Jefferson, written in the twilight of a life filled with brilliant achievements in the cause of democracy, including his authorship of the Declaration of Independence.

"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823

If we make it difficult to remove high court justices, we must be extremely careful whom we empower to decide on their selection. The judicial selection process must become more transparent and better checked.