Shelanu: Direct Representation for Israel

Leftist Libelous Groupthink Over Loughner

2011-01-15T20:59:00.006+02:00

If you've listened to pundits on TV or read them in mainstream newspapers, you might think that Sarah Palin and/or other right-leaning conservative figures contracted tragic Jared Lee Loughner's shooting spree last week.

A thorough initial investigation of the killer reveals absolutely no connection to mainstream conservative figures like Palin, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly. A more honest, fact-based appraisal of Loughner leanings would show that his demons were inspired at least as much by leftist rhetoric as by right wing ideology.

Consider this. Loughner's documented complaints against Gabrielle Giffords, the congresswoman currently fighting for her life after being shot through the brain, were not based upon her credentials as a politically active liberal. Loughner railed against Giffords being a "fake." Gabrielle Giffords is well known as a "blue-dog" Democrat, i.e., one who demonstrates a more moderate political philosophy than the more extreme leftism that currently characterizes the Democratic Party. Loughner is also a fervent "9/11 Truther," who espouses that the 9/11 terrorist attacks against America were perpetrated with the collusion of elements in the U.S. government. Along the political spectrum, the Truther movement is far more accepted on the left than the right. It would be more reasonable to conclude that Loughner was influenced more by leftist extremism than by rightist rhetoric.

The most reasonable conclusion is that Jared Lee Loughner is a dangerously psychotic individual who realized his awful potential to inflict deadly harm. According to his best friend, he did not fall into either right or left camps, but was heavily influenced by conspiracy theories in general.

But, as Rahm Emannuel so stated so clearly in what was the Soviet propagandist style, "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." What's more, if you can customize a crisis out of a tragedy, even better for engineering consensus among a political base. "Mainstream" leftist pundits have chosen to ignore the established, documented facts regarding Loughner, make politically expedient but spurious causal connections, and project a libelous connection onto their right-leaning bogeymen. At this point, the left's favorite bogeyman is Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin responded eloquently this past week to the attempts to link her to Loughner's murder spree. She called these attempts a "blood libel" and she used the label correctly and appropriately. Yes, the term "blood libel" does originate from a traumatic, tragic, and heinous act against Jews. However, that term "blood libel," has indeed become a common metaphor for the slanderous accusations of murder to unjustly blame an innocent party. It has been used numerous times, without outcry by Jewish organizations, to denounce slanderous claims against Israel, the IDF, and Jews in general.

While Abe Foxman was right to defend Palin against the leftist onslaught of slander, he was absolutely out of line to take her to task for using "blood libel" to describe the slander against her. Other Jewish groups have been even more emphatic to tow the left-wing line in vilifying Palin for her use of the term. It seems like the knee-jerk tendency of so many American Jews to identify with the left has blinded them to the unfortunate fact that they are aiding and abetting political libel themselves.

Netanyahu Fails the Leadership Test... Again

2010-11-16T02:11:00.004+02:00

This week, Benjamin Netanyahu showed himself to be, like so many other Israeli "leaders," someone who could lay false claim to virtues of leadership. Netanyahu has decided to kowtow to Barack Obama and extend the freeze on building in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Why? That is a difficult question to answer for a variety of reasons.

Let's start with the rumoured quid pro quo that Israel will supposedly get for playing ball in Obama's court. Last week, the inducement was a promise by Hillary Clinton that the US would veto any UN-imposed peace deals. In other words, in return for Israel continuing to set a precedent in abandoning its legitimate claims on Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem, the Obama administration will continue the policy that every prior American administration has maintained. This week, the stick looks a bit more like a carrot, with Obama offering to sell Israel 20 F35 stealth fighters if they discriminate against Jewish construction for another three months. Bear in mind that these warplanes would are estimated to arrive in 2017. Can the Obama administration be trusted to keep the deal if 90 days pass, the Palestinians still show no interest in real peace, and Israel resumes construction? No.

The proof is in the rotten pudding that was been served up during the recently ended ten month moratorium on construction. The result of Israel's show of good faith? Arab rejectionism produced a PA refusal of any reciprocation. The result? More demands of Israeli good faith, i.e., more Israeli concessions to reward PA intransigence.

Netanyahu seems to be in abject fear of disappointing Obama, perhaps over fears that Obama will be more inclined to deal strongly with Iran if Israel does it his way. But, a pro-Israel Congress, arguably more pro-Israel with the new crop of freshmen House and Senate legislators, will not obligingly tolerate Obama abuse of Israel at the UN or with regard to Iran.

Netanyahu has been letting Obama achieve an undeserved level of primacy in how Israel protects itself and conducts its peace negotiations. This must stop immediately. Come on, Bibi, grow a backbone! Instruct Israel's hasbarah organs to show that Abbas is no peace partner. Make public Israel's decision to stop amputating her communities in return for a nebulous sense of international acceptance. Let Obama know, in no uncertain language, that Israel's historic heartland is not for sale. Let Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of Fatah and Hamas know that when Israel presents a concession, PA reciprocation is the only acceptable response and that barring such a response, Israeli concessions may be reversed and taken off the table.

Most importantly, Bibi, remember to whom you are responsible. Remember the source of your legitimacy as a leader of the State of Israel. It doesn't lie with Obama. The source includes the citizens of Israel. Do right by them. Stop being Obama's poodle.

Pray for a Republican Victory on Tuesday

2010-10-29T16:44:00.010+02:00

Usually, I'm impressed with Gil Hoffman's reporting and analysis. His articles are characterized by a clear and logical line of reasoning, linking observations with qualitative insights. As such, I was surprised by his analysis and conclusions in his article today, which stated that a Democratic loss in the midterms would translate into greater problems for Israel.

The 2010 U.S. midterm elections for Congress (, for both House and Senate,) are widely viewed as a referendum mainly on domestic policy, but also, to some degree, on foreign policy.

When Democrats lose control of the House, and moreso if they lose the Senate majority as well, President Obama, his facilitators, and handlers, will face a sobering reality. They can either defy the great majority of Americans and continue to push unpopular, economically disastrous policies, or they can concentrate on bolstering enough support from the mainstream and struggle to secure a second term in the White House. Clinton faced this choice in 1994 and drastically changed his policies to win a second term.

Given the priority of the economy, especially jobs, on the U.S. public's agenda, the executive branch of the U.S. will not be concentrating on foreign policy. They will certainly not be squandering any resources on any "peace process" unless a clear breakthrough is on the horizon.

While the economy is foremost on Americans' minds, polls indicate that the majority is very unhappy with Obama's foreign policy direction. His aggressively antagonistic posture towards Israel angers a majority of Americans, who are pro-Israel. They are by and large opposed to gestures which appear to appease imperialist and extremist elements in the Muslim world. Obama's kowtowing to the Saudi Prince and his support for the building of the Mosque at 9/11's Ground Zero have demonstrated to most Americans, including those who voted him into office and now suffer "Obama Remorse," that he is out of touch with his public. The pragmatic leaders in the Democratic party know this and it scares them.

The revitalized elements in the Republican party, which are successfully and effectively promoting many candidates for the Congress, are also staunchly and characteristically pro-Israel. With a Republican Speaker of the House, and perhaps a Republican Senate Majority Leader, Obama is going to find funding difficult for even the most miniscule expenditures if he tries to pressure Israel. The President may set foreign policy, but the Congress controls the government's purse strings for implementing those policies.

A Democratic defeat will go a long way in neutralizing the motivation for the Obama Administration to pressure Israel. To the contrary, a Republican victory will revitalize the spirit of kindred alliance that links Israel and the U.S. and defang the far left's open hostility towards the Jewish State.

Dan Halutz: Ignorance and Politics

2010-10-17T00:19:00.002+02:00

Dan Halutz has announced his entry into politics. This former IDF lieutenant general distinguished himself through his disastrous and lethal incompetence in the last Lebanese War. He wasted no time in demonstrating his total ignorance of Israeli-US relations by opening his mouth.

Halutz opined that by refusing to extend the ban on housing starts in Judea and Samaria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would anger US President Obama, and the result would be to harm efforts to prevent a nuclear Iran. Halutz's abysmal disconnect with reality is remarkable, but not wholly unexpected.

As Jonathan Rosenblum pointed out so well in this week's Jerusalem Post Magazine, only an ignoramus regarding U.S. politics would assume that Israel has to placate the ego of the U.S. Commander in Chief in order to safeguard bi-national relations. And only a political imbecile would be blind to the fact that Barack Obama's demonstrated foreign policy incompetence has made him almost irrelevant to long-term U.S. foreign policy.

Israel has, for ten months, instituted a building freeze in Judea, Samaria, and parts of Jerusalem. In other words, Netanyahu gave in to Obama's initial demand to discriminate against Jews in their own land. In return, Mahmoud Abbas delivered Netanyahu's meeting his requests, even at significant political expense.

How fitting that an ex-general who bought into the concept of planned mediocrity when it came to his military decisions would hitch his wagon to the apex of Israeli political mediocrity, the Kadima party.

It is no anomaly that the left wing in Israel constantly seeks to ingratiate itself with the left wing in the U.S. and, of course, Europe. That is the way of political elites. They regularly seek to bolster their counterparts and, by so doing, cement the concept that elites should have disproportionate influence.

Putting it All Together

2010-10-07T01:17:00.002+02:00

Three years have past since I started this blog. Truth be told, I've written sporadically. Since I started my job, I've barely had time even to think. Perhaps, I've been escaping the challenge ahead, avoiding the regular commitment that comes with infusing real meaning in my life. So, I'm back. Which leads me into the theme of this blog, "Putting it All Together."

If there is going to be a movement to change the form of government in Israel, it's got to be bigger than just changing the form of government in Israel. It's got to be about changing the way Israelis think of themselves. It's got to be about principles and why principles are important. It's got to be about the effects of principles - and the lack of principles - on our lives and our country.

A Shelanu movement could do so much for this country. Defining the things that are important to us, clearly, directly, and significantly, will help us address so many issues.

I need to be better at this. No matter how good I get, I'll need help.

Where Electoral Revolutions Come From

2010-09-27T02:11:00.000+02:00

Three years ago, electoral reform was the hot topic. We were angry, asking ourselves and those around us why we tolerated a system whose coalition intrigues could have put Ehud Olmert in the prime minister's office and Histadrut uber-union hack Amir Peretz in the defense ministry. For the first time, Israel lost a war with terrorists, solely because Olmert's government could not decide on how to let the lawyers command the troops. There were meetings among well-heeled organizations discussing the need for changing the electoral system. There were calls for reform from senior policy makers.

So, what happened since then? What hasn't happened? Global financial meltdowns. Iran's nuclear bomb drive. An Obama presidency quadrupling the U.S. debt to more than all the previous presidents combined, wreaking havoc with the economy. The discovery of huge gas reserves off of Israel's shores. But, seriously, when have we Israelis ever had a breather? It still doesn't change the fact that we need a truly representative, personally accountable, and constrained system of government.

In the United States, people have been organizing to make a real difference. The Tea Party, a true grassroots movement of regular Americans - many, many regular Americans - have realized that they, as individual citizens, have real power. They are not waiting for some political saviour to emerge to prevent the ruin of the United States of America. Barack Obama, perhaps the most personally charismatic politician in U.S. history, with the financial backing of billionaires, will likely lose his party their majorities in both Houses of Congress. He will lose them not only because of failed policies, but because American citizens are holding their elected officials personally responsible for failing to protect their interests. In short, individual American citizens will be firing many of their legislators in November because these legislators have forgotten that they were hired to do a job.

The American mainstream media, long dominated by the left, have mocked these American patriots, falsely portraying them as fringe kooks, religious extremists, and even racists. But the Tea Party's message of limited government, fiscal responsibility, and individual empowerment is difficult to besmirch in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Where is Israel's Tea Party movement? Okay, so Israel didn't have a Tea Party in its history like Americans had the Boston Tea Party, in which patriots dressed as native Americans dumped British tea into Boston harbor to protest taxation without representation. But we have many examples of individuals taking power in order to right wrongs. We've had revolts against other forms of tyranny in the past. Why not fight against the tyranny of a system that devalues the work and standing of the individual citizen? Why not fight against a system of government that celebrates mediocrity and collectivism?

America and Israel have an intertwined destiny. America's founding fathers knew this, and so did modern Israel's. While these two countries were young, they celebrated liberty and responsibility, integrity and truth. But, whereas America's founding fathers codified these principles into a constitution that framed the limits of governmental power - and guaranteed individual liberties, Israel took a collectivist left turn. In trying to satisfy narrow interests, Israeli politics ignored the value of the individual citizen, the individual politician, the individual Jew. In our generation, we are pupils of clear lessons on how individual initiatives changes the world, how applied principles of freedom and self-reliance at the individual level create a healthy society, how government's fail when they try to run marketplaces and individual lives.

In Israel, anyone with special needs acutely feels the limits of socialized medicine. True, we have "competing" sick funds, but the "single payer" to the hospitals is still the Ministry of Health. And so, we have lines for operations. And we have the "gray market" for health care, those private physicians and clinics which charge premiums outside of our sick fund framework. Government-run healthcare is wasteful and, ultimately, harmful to the same poor people it claims to protect.

Presently, Israel is in much better shape than the U.S. and Europe. In this regard, the world's reluctance to lend Israel money has worked to Israel's benefit. But, are most Israelis benefiting? Much of Israel's financial success has been driven by high-tech. High-tech benefits from immunity from the interference of the Histadrut super-union. In the Internet sector, start-up costs tend to be lower than in heavier industries. Other sectors that employ Israelis - agriculture, textiles, heavy industry - have not experienced the growth and profitability enjoyed by high-tech. These industries have shrunk. And let's not forget that Israelis are among the most taxed citizens in the "free world." To a large extent, our tax shekels end up in the "entitled" pockets of Haredim and others who manipulate the collectivist, proportional system of Israeli representation. Our tax shekels prop up a massive government bureaucracy filled with redundant ministries and budgets which exist largely to facilitate political favors. We can change this.

It's easy to be cynical; it takes courage to become inspired. Israelis should carefully observe how the Tea Party movement in America takes down a self-destructive, elitist, political machine. We should watch and learn.

Renewal

2009-04-07T23:34:00.008+03:00

Passover is the anniversary of our emancipation from Egypt and our birth as a nation. It is also a new year of sorts as Nissan is the first month in the Hebrew calendar. It is a time of renewal with the start of springtime and the ecosystem's life cycle. For me, it marks a personal renewal.

As of April 1, I am working at Zion Oil & Gas as an operations engineer. It is my first full-time position in seven years and I feel fortunate for the opportunity to work with some great people on a project to help make Israel energy independent. Because of my job-hunting, I have not been able to dedicate very much time to Shelanu. At this point, I hope to be able to better structure my time in order to give a fresh push to Shelanu's cause, which is so vital to the wellbeing of our nation and our country.

I am looking for individuals willing to take on the leadership of this cause, or at least take an active role in sharing the leadership. We have a great message and a great potential, but it takes a great deal of attention and coordination. And so, I'm looking for someone with experience in non-profit organizing and someone who truly understands and believes in our cause. If I'm talking to you, please talk to me.

Lately, I've been watching another renewal in America, the renewal of "We the People" as embodied in the April 15th "tea parties" all across the U.S., regional protests against the runaway spending that characterizes the current congress and executive administration. Fox News's Glen Beck has brought in an actor to dramatize one of the key writers of the American Revolutionary period, Thomas Paine, as he might have felt about the tea parties. It made me curious to go back and read Paine's classic work, "Common Sense," specifically the chapters relating to representative government.

"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

"Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

I cannot think of anything more cogent that better captures the problem with Israeli politics and Israeli political media. Quite simply, the pundits and the reporters are constantly, misleadingly, and falsely emphasizing the political cliques as if they truly characterize Israeli society. And, conversely, the proportional parliamentary government, rather than limit itself to providing essential governing services, tries to pry its way into every aspect of Israeli society and, in so doing, become a bloated, encroaching albatross on our shoulders.

I'll be applying the words of Thomas Paine in future blog entries as well.

Haisraelim Part 2

2009-01-22T23:42:00.003+02:00

Today, I spoke with Prof. Gideon Doron, the head of the Haisraelim party and holder of its top slot on the list. He clarified some important items on the party's platform.

Haisraelim is not pushing the Megidor proposal. Gil Hoffman made an incorrect connection between Gideon's prior involvement with the President's Commission chaired by Megidor and his current party activity. Haisraelim is not stating any specifics regarding how many in the Knesset should be directly elected, only that there should be representatives directly elected. Furthermore, according to Gideon, they are indeed supporting single-representative districts. So, I do feel alot better about that.

I still have my reservations about the party. Haisraelim should not address the issue of the constitution nor make gender equality an issue in the party's list selection. Gideon qualified these as "marketing issues." I also feel that those financing the party are "blowing their wad" too early, without even a minimal cultivation of Israeli community support. One thing for sure, Shelanu will still have plenty to do after this election.

January 2009 Update

2009-01-20T18:30:00.022+02:00

Inauguration Day

Today is Inauguration Day and the celebration of the incoming 44th President of the United States has been, by any scale, the grandest in history. A record two million people attended in person and I have no doubt that live viewership on broadcast, cable, and internet channels was the largest of any political event in history.

I did not support Obama and I am, indeed, wary of how he will lead the United States. Yet, the event inspired me. As in Israel and every other functioning democracy, the transition of power was peaceful. But today, in the United States and on the Congressional Mall in particular, there was something more. The vast majority of Americans, including those who voted against Obama, expressed the sentiment that Barack Obama, who will lead America as its commander-in-chief, was the choice of the people. They felt this because he was personally chosen by individual voters, not through back-room deals and cross-party manipulations. In America, political parties are organizers and facilitators. In Israel, they are interest groups which act as public proxies; this must change.

I believe that all of America, including those who felt, as I did, that John McCain was the better choice, are proud to follow and be served by a President of African-American descent. For some, it was the dominant factor in their voting choice, a phenomenon that may have resulted in an unqualified individual leading America and the free world. Yet, I also believe that America and its political system, with its institutional political checks and balances, are robust enough to endure this. Even if the Obama administration disappoints greatly, Americans can take pride in their part of the process insofar as they respect the decision of their collective franchise. The point is that the American voters had the final word in this hiring process. And they will have it again when they, as voting individuals, re-evaluate the Obama administration in less than four years.

Haisraelim

A new political party is promoting the regional election of some Knesset Members as their main platform issue. The party is called "Haisraelim" and you can read about them at http://www.haisraelim.org. Though the party promotes the concept of regional representation, I cannot support it for several reasons. According to Gil Hoffman's recent Jerusalem Post article, "The power-to-the-people party," the party supports the Megidor Commission's disastrous proposal for only half of the Knesset to be regionally elected; the regions would not be drawn for single-legislator representation; there would be 17 regions with 2 to 5 legislators per region, resulting in some ambiguous accountability and representation issues. As I have explained before (see the FAQ page of Shelanu's web site), hybrid solutions which result in a hybridized direct/proportional system will be disastrous because the balance of power will be taken out of the hands of the voters. The influence of publicly accountable legislators will be diluted by the inclusion of publicly unaccountable party appointees. Also, in a hybridized system, the legislative "whipping boys" will not be the underperforming MKs; those who are punished for the lack of excellence will be those whom the voters are able to kick out; i.e., their incumbent representatives.

Secondly, Haisraelim approaches the problem of unprofessional government ministers by setting up a panel of MKs to oversee the "appropriateness" of ministerial candidates. This will certainly not make the process less "political." Knesset votes to confirm candidates are important, however this does not take the vital step of separating the branches of government that will result in an effective, responsive, and responsible government bureaucracy. This may also serve to obscure Haisraelim's key message of popular empowerment.

Thirdly, Haisraelim throws its hat in with other groups demanding a national constitution. However, at this time, pushing for a constitution would likely prevent the most important reforms that Israel needs. Those presently sitting in the Knesset, who were appointed on the basis of the current, disastrous proportional system of representation, are absolutely unfit to be writing and dictating the content of a constitution. An enduring, fitting, and beneficial constitution is much more likely once the public has voted in a better quality of legislator.

Fourth, Haisraelim insists on expressing the equality of the sexes by alternating its list slots by sex. In other words, the first slot will go to a man, the second to a woman, the third to a man, and so on. This flies in the face of one of the key aspects of regional, direct representation, namely, the value of individual empowerment and responsibility. A consideration of an individual's fitness to represent should mean looking beyond one's sex. In my lifetime, I have been served by male and female legislators; their sex had very little to do with their fitness and effectiveness. While gender equality is an important value, it should be manifested in a legislative selection that is gender-blind, not gender-centric. Haisraelim should stick to a message of individual accountability and individual excellence without gender restrictions.

Lastly, it is premature to launch a political party with regional representation as its main issue until the public is prepared for it. This should be done only after a dynamic movement has been operating and recruiting massive support from the Israeli public. Most Israelis who support regional representation will not dedicate their one vote to it for a simple reason. The party will do poorly at the polls and may not win even a single mandate. This itself may be unfortunate, but the real negative consequence will be the interpretation that the poor showing indicates widespread opposition to regional, direct representation. While I greatly respect Prof. Gideon, Haisraelim's leader, as an academic and visionary, I believe that he should have laid a more comprehensive groundwork of cultural activism and rallied significant public support before forming a political party. In fact, with a successful national movement, no single issue party would be needed; the largest parties would adopt a regional election platform as a means of finally eliminating the extortion of the small parties.

T-Shirts Have Shipped

The first batch of Shelanu shirts have shipped and they came out beautifully in all sizes, including toddler size 4 (which are available in pink and blue). We are now accepting donations for the next batch, so if you haven't already, please donate towards the t-shirt campaign. And if you have already, then send us pictures of you them so that we can put a personal, popular face on our web site. Click here for details on the t-shirt campaign.

Annual Meeting

Finally, we will be planning our annual meeting soon. If you'd like to help with the planning, please contact me.

A Lesson in Succession

2008-09-29T00:56:00.005+03:00

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.

Vice President
Speaker of the House of Representatives
President pro tempore of the Senate
Secretary of State
Secretary of the Treasury
Secretary of Defense
Attorney General
Secretary of the Interior
Secretary of Agriculture
Secretary of Commerce
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Secretary of Transportation
Secretary of Energy
Secretary of Education
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
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.

2008-08-14T20:21:00.005+03:00

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

2008-07-20T19:11:00.028+03:00

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

2008-07-10T20:01:00.007+03:00

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

2008-07-10T19:11:00.005+03:00

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

2008-06-29T18:16:00.011+03:00

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"

2008-06-25T11:41:00.005+03:00

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

2008-05-30T10:51:00.007+03:00

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

2008-05-28T13:48:00.006+03:00

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

2008-05-11T23:57:00.002+03:00

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

2008-04-03T11:48:00.002+03:00

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.

2008-02-07T09:45:00.000+02:00

"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

2008-01-16T21:01:00.000+02:00

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.

Damning the majority... again

2007-12-20T15:10:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, I sat in, again, on the Constituion, Justice, and Law Committee. The topic of the session was how the Knesset passes the budget. The first proposal stated, "A proposed law will pass, when dealing with budgetary issues, with at least 50 votes among Knesset Members." In other words, a simple majority is not sufficient. There could be 49 votes in favor, zero votes opposed and 71 abstentions, and the budget would not pass. From the other extreme, as worded, the 50 votes in favor of a budget proposal would pass even with an opposition of 70, as the proposal does not mention the word "majority." When I asked whether this last point was a possibility, committee chair Menachem Ben-Sasson referred me to small print in the footnotes of the bill, which states, "this majority is necessary in the first reading, the second reading, and the third reading..." A key question... Is the concept of majority not central enough, in principle and in practice, to the passage of laws the it should not be clearly specified in something so crucial as a protocol for budgetary legislation? Ben-Sasson instructed his legislative law aide to look into the matter.

This is another instance in which the concept of majority rule is either neglected or perverted. In the United States, both houses of Congress pass budget bills on the basis of simple majority. For one thing, it is unlikely that a significant number of U.S. legislators would not weigh in and vote on a budget proposal. Their constituents would not be very forgiving. So, what is the significance of the proviso of a majority consisting of at least 50 MKs? In the parliamentary coalition system that is the shame and the bane of Israeli governance, the threshold guarantees that narrow interests would be courted in order for the party with executive power to pass a budget. In the current system, minority interests and the opposition parties don't even have to coordinate a "nay" vote to defeat a budget they deem unacceptable. The implication, once again, is the very "European" Israeli perspective of not considering the national population as a single, diverse "public," but rather as separate interest groups, whose fractionating influence continues to prevent the development of a mainstream, public political majority.

When Good People Get It Wrong

2007-10-28T09:08:00.000+02:00

Sarah Honig is one of my very, very favorite columnists... anywhere. When it comes to pinning the the pinheads who, through greed or sheer incompetence, place our security at risk and violate our democracy, nobody does it as eloquently as Sarah. So, when I read her column in the Jerusalem Post almost two weeks ago ( Another Tack: I am the state, 18 October 2007), I felt surprised and disappointed. She described the movement towards a constituency system as essentially a naive, falsely-euphoric "quick-fix" approach.

Nobody I know who works towards instituting a majoritarian system here has any illusions of how quick it might be changed, or how it might fix all of our problems. This isn't like some magic tonic that lets us be "just like America." Those of us pushing for a constituency system have a very basic belief in some intrinsic values:

the individual accountability to the public that is possible only when one is directly elected
the tradition of real debate and shared destiny, across social divides. that occurs in majoritarian systems
the priority of public service - to a single, national public - over the sectarian patronization institutionalized by proportionalism
that an individual voter should have the last word to express his preference for who, specifically, will influence law and policy in his name; that no vote is transferable by anyone other than the voter himself.
that minorities must not be able to force a majority to act against that majority's own interests.

These are values that not only guide a system of governance, they transform and characterize a nation. It's a question of commitment to the principle that we must make national decisions as a single nation. Those who do not want to be part of that nation will just have to make an adjustment, either by participating and thereby throwing in their lot with the mainstream, trying to influence from within by appealing to the majority, or by disenfranchising themselves and removing themselves from the process of influencing policy. Proportional systems enable some factions, and their MKs, to openly manipulate our political system without committing to its national well-being. This alone should make Sarah an enthusiastic advocate of a constituency system.

Sarah hinted that Israeli corruption in gerrymandering would result in single-party hegemony. Well, we live under a hegemony right now: the hegemony of a sacred status quo among the power elite that has no association in the public. Yes, gerrymandering is a constant challenge in constituency systems, however there are political mechanisms in constituency systems that can address this issue.

The question is, what motivates the public to demand and produce political excellence? What system produces and benefits patriots who serve a true national vision? Not the proportional system, with its built-in sectarian entitlements; the majoritarian system does, because it pushes the public to form a mainstream majority.

Sarah's blames Israelis for just voting poorly. We Israelis, who vote for parties like Gil (the pensioners' party), or the Green Party, or other parties with narrow interest, just don't take voting seriously. She fails to consider that our proportional-parliamentary system, with its post-election horsetrading, makes it impossible for voters for major parties to actually know whom or what they are supporting with their votes. A person's vote becomes a fungible resource of a party central committee, which acts as the citizen's proxy. The Israeli voter is vulnerable to trendy whims because such a system will not reward individual excellence or integrity. Coalitions effectively end up making liars out of each elected leadership. Tragically, the only parties that can be relied upon to stick to their election promises tooth-and-nail are those narrow-interest parties.

Elections are a major part of a democracy's sensory-cognitive center, the mechanism that provides a living vertebrate with reliable sensory information and efficient response functions. It should be clear to all of us, especially Sarah, that our system makes us politically aphasic; we are unable to translate our national will into a choice that can be reliably perceived or expressed. Give us a system in which individuals commit their names and careers to campaign platforms, one that actually empowers the winners to execute on those promises, and we Israelis will make good decisions. It's not the people, Sarah, it's the system.

My letter to today's Jerusalem Post

2007-09-18T00:03:00.000+02:00

A letter of mine, clarifying my perspective regarding the direct election of the Prime Minister in the 1990s, was published in today's Jerusalem Post. You can read it at the following web address.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411413619&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer

It reads as follows.

For real reform

Sir, - Kudos to Gil Hoffman for his recent pieces on electoral reform efforts ("Power to the people" (September 7) and its follow-up on Shelanu ("New electoral reform," September 10). Articles like these should remind us, especially those who feel alienated and helpless in Israel's quagmire of poor governance, that the source of political power in any democracy is the public. Citizen activism can make a crucial difference.

I would like to clarify one issue on the reporting of my perspective: While I do believe that the direct election of every Knesset member is vital, I don't claim that its absence primarily caused the direct election of the prime minister to fail. That effort at reform was acutely flawed because of a different combination of incompatible principles in action.

Individual accountability and executive discretionary authority, facilitated by the direct election of the prime minister, were trumped by a coalition system of executive power-sharing meant to deny that very same discretion to the prime minister. Once Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak were directly elected by the public, the Knesset could circumvent the public's choice by bringing down the government in a vote of no-confidence at any time thereafter, upon a coalition's weakening. This constant threat forced these PMs to prioritize coalition demands over the public interest and campaign promises. As non-separate entities with shared personnel and management, either the legislative branch hobbled the functioning of the executive branch, or vice versa.

A presidential executive system, effectively separating the legislative from the executive branch, would go a long way toward rectifying this problematic situation. It should be an integral part in a comprehensive change, including the direct election of legislators, to rehabilitate our system of government into one that truly serves the interests of the Israeli public.

MICHAEL JAFFE
Director, Shelanu
Zichron Ya'akov

Jerusalem Post Follows Up on.... US!!

2007-09-11T00:53:00.000+03:00

After I sent a quick email to Jerusalem Post reporter Gil Hoffman, (who penned last Friday's piece on political reform, "Power to the people,") Gil called me on the phone and interviewed me. That interview was reported in today's Jerusalem Post in an article called, "New electoral reform movement Shelanu launches plan to directly elect 120 MKs." You can read it at the following web address.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188392576615&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer

The article was short and to the point. While he was a bit fuzzy about my views on the the direct election of the prime minister, I am very grateful for the opportunity he's given me. Now, I really have to get that amutah (non-profit organization) application finished and submitted!

In Today's Jerusalem Post

2007-09-07T20:45:00.000+03:00

Today's Jerusalem Post included an article in the "In Focus" magazine section, titled "Power to the people," dealing with currents and undercurrents of electoral reform. You can read it at the following address:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188392551714&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer

Among other things, the article describes the work of the people at CEPAC. CEPAC is the Citizens' Empowerment Public Action Committee. CEPAC advocates, among other reforms, the direct election of 60 MKs (half the Knesset) in 60 single-representative districts. The CEPAC web site's "Background and Goals" page, at http://www.cepac.org.il/Site/Site_ViewPage.asp?id=3, states

"Ideally we would like all 120 M.K.'s elected by district (perhaps a future goal) but realistically we feel that the 60-60 split has the best chance of being adopted."

Just because an alternative is easier to achieve in the short term doesn't mean it is the better alternative. CEPAC has good intentions and good people working for it; I know and respect their leaders. However, compromising on vital principals of governance in order to achieve quicker results is not a winning strategy. Such a compromise may nullify any potential gains in public service that these good people are working so hard to achieve. It's worth waiting a while longer, working a little harder, to get it right. It's worth being stubborn.

We, at Shelanu, don't think that the public should have to compromise on principles of true representation. We certainly don't owe senior members of the major parties guaranteed job security as MKs. We believe that all members of Knesset should be elected by the same criteria. We believe that the public should have the last and only say in how it wants to be served, in which form of representative democracy. We believe that the public can bring about the changes it wants if it well organized around focused, principled goals.

We have good reason to believe that such partial compromises will not result in progress towards our goal of the direct election of all Knesset members. When the influence of directly elected MKs is diluted, such that they constitute only half of the Knesset, narrow interests and corrupting influences have a good chance of derailing legislation in the public interest. In the past, we saw an important reform, the direct and separate election of the prime minister, become tainted and then abandoned because of a tragic "compromise" of its applied principle; the cause of government reform was set back over a decade.

Real reforms don't occur very often. If we're going to make the effort to reshape Israel's political culture, there is no point in aiming for the mediocre, no point in gratefully accepting what today's failed legislators are willing to offer. An unsatisfied employer does not let a mediocre employee decide how to run the business. It is time to get serious about reform, time to decide what we, the People, want and pursue it. It doesn't take a PhD to understand the principles of good governance. It does take steadfast determination to achieve worthwhile change.

Party for Sale

2007-09-01T00:00:00.000+03:00

The travesty that is Israeli democracy has hit a new low in absurdity. On Tuesday, Ehud Barak announced that the Labor party would not be leaving the government coalition. Might this have something to do with any feeling of solidarity between Labor and Kadima? Is this a case of uncharacteristically galant political non-partisanship towards addressing national issues? Apparently not.

Barak explained that the Labor party must stay in the government because it is too broke to run in an election. "We cannot win an election as a charity case," Barak told Labor's executive committee. Under his leadership, Barak promised that the finanacial situation would be rectified, "and after that face the political challenge ahead..." While campaigning for the leadership of Labor, Barak promised that he would inititate early elections upon release of the Winograd Committee Report on last summer's Lebanon War.

Two troublesome and inescapable conclusions arise from Barak's financial justification. First, never has it been so clear that political principles are for sale in Israel. That Israelis tolerate it, and individuals still vote for parties with leaders that flaunt it, is good reason to worry about Israel's public political culture. Second, there is an easily imagined possibility that Barak plans to exact financial advantages from his position of leverage in the coalition. Might public tax money end up paying for the financial rehabilitation of the Labor party?

Not only is Labor's bank account empty, so are its ethical principles and the promises of its leadership. This isn't Labor's problem alone, though. In this political system, with proportionalism denying the direct influence of the public in the selection of representatives and leaders, the game is musical chairs. Do whatever you can to maintain your seat; how you do it is unimportant. Lots of Israeli voters want to vote for "a winner;" what many don't realize is that by electing the party leadership choice, they are usually electing mediocrity. So, while they might be voting for proportionally elected "winners," the resulting mediocre, corrupt, inept public service the voters eventually receive makes them, and all of us really, losers.

Back in Sderot: A Day With Lev Echad

2007-06-08T18:40:00.000+03:00

Last Wednesday, I returned to Sderot to volunteer with Lev Echad. It was an experience that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone who can make the trip down. Unlike my trip the week before, I didn't think of this trip as a fact-finding, dangerous excursion to the city where Kassams fall almost daily. I went to help the people of Sderot.

I arrived at Lev Echad's compound at around one in the afternoon. A short while later, I was briefed about what to do if a condition red was sounded. When outside, find a wall that faces east and crouch against it. If you're near any family dwelling, don't knock, just enter and find a shelter or fortified doorway. The idea of entering a home uninvited can be strange or uncomfortable for an outsider to contemplate. For the locals and volunteers who have been in Sderot for a week or more, the practice is second nature.

My first assignment of the day was to respond to a request by a 20 year-old woman to help her mother, who suffered from extreme anxiety, to seek help. We arrived at the address around two in the afternoon. My partner, a yeshivah student, was reluctant to knock on the door as it was siesta time. Knowing when the call came in, I insisted. The mother opened the door and made it clear that we were most welcome to enter. She set up some refreshments for us despite our protestations; we were there for her. Sderot's people are so happy and grateful to have others visit them. They are grateful to see others stand beside them to face the fallout of the government's lack of moral clarity, to face the inability of so-called leaders to deal decisively with outright, deadly attacks.

Her daughter joined us shortly and after about twenty minutes her husband arrived from his job in the municipality. Sitting in the salon, talking about family and the situation in the country, the mother seemed at ease. However, when the topic of going outside came up, she seemed to clench in from the center of her chest. We spoke about her anxiety. For weeks, she had not left the house, had not shopped for food or worked.

We discussed our views on the source of Israel's apparent national paralysis in dealing with its problems, the disconnection between the people and those ineffectively chosen to ineffectively govern. While discussing this topic, a condition red was sounded and we huddled under a reinforced doorway. We left about a half-hour later.

My next assignment found me on the other side of Sderot about two hours later. That evening, an information session was organized to showcase government officials and policy makers. A mother of five children needed a babysitter so that she might attend. The hour we were supposed to spend there turned into two. The children were absolutely delightful. A two year old played for a while and then went to sleep. The other children were happy to watch a DVD. We talked for a little while about what it was like to go to the park.

When the mother came back home, she spoke about how the government officials said nothing of importance. The main message was that the rockets would continue. Get used to it. It was simultaneously a disgrace and an outrage.

The mother drove us back to the Lev Echad compound, where volunteers were preparing for the nightly march throughout Sderot. Once underway, the volunteers waved flags and bear torches, singing and dancing from one neighborhood to the next. They sang Hebrew songs, psalms, and "Sderot, we love you." People would come to the windows. Some would come down from their apartments to sing and dance along. There were embraces as volunteers and citizens became reacquainted from earlier assignments. In parking lots, we passed cars with shattered windshields and holes peppered throughout their steel bodies, damaged by Kassams. We walked along roadbeds gouged and scarred from shrapnel.

The parade lasted over two hours. By the time the volunteers arrived at the school where they slept it was almost eleven in the evening. We were then informed that Elya had arranged for a bus to take us to the beach at Ashkelon for a midnight swim. So, at half past midnight, I was swimming in the Mediterranean with a bunch of pre-army and post-army kids, some younger than Tamar. We could see the lights of Gaza. Swimming about fifty yards from the shore, I felt I was swimming in a photographic negative of a world.

When I came out of the water, Elya had just gotten the chance to swim. As we passed, he asked me, "What do you think of them?" "Very impressive," I replied. These young people, and all who came down to support Sderot, these people understood what is important, what is crucial. When I lamented that more people weren't volunteering and visiting Sderot that Wednesday, Elya informed me that it was a light turnout relative to the norm. On weekends, numerous busloads of people, some privately arranged, some through yeshivahs and communities, came to spend Shabbat with the people of Sderot. Lev Echad arranges to house them and feed them.

We arrived back at the school at two-thirty, pre-dawn. After waking several hours later, I had one assignment: to help a mother convince her eight year old daughter to go to school. It turned out that the daughter was not overly-anxious, she was exhausted. She had slept only two hours the night before, which was normal for her. She had health problems and the rockets aggravated her sleeping patterns. We sat with mother and daughter for a while and returned to the compound.

I hope to return to Sderot in the coming weeks, spending two or three days at a time helping out. It's good work, good people, both volunteers and Sderot citizens. It's not only about the responsibilities to one's country and countrymen. It's about the the feeling of reconciling who we are as Jews and free people facing down barbarism.

Lev Echad is doing great work. If there is a drawback, it is that Lev Echad does what it does so well that the government might not feel the need and responsibility to do all that it should in relieving Sderot and eliminating the threat from Gaza. So, while Sderot is justifiably grateful to Lev Echad, I hope their indignation towards their government of mediocrity remains strong and vociferous. Until we have a system that rewards achievement and punishes failure, this outrage of a neglected public must not abate.

You can contact Lev Echad at 054-7587462/3.

Sderot: Afternoon in a Ghost Town

2007-05-29T19:08:00.000+03:00

It's hard to imagine that the town of Sderot, bordering the northeast tip of Gaza, is only an hour's drive south of cosmopolitan Tel Aviv, forty-five minutes if you avoid rush hour and liberally interpret speed limits. It's like driving from Manhattan to Atlantic Beach, Miami to Hallandale, Malibu to Pasadena. For the past seven years, the people of Sderot, and anyone unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, have lived under the shadow of Kassam rocket attacks. I imagine that if rockets fell on any of these places, the entire population within a two hundred mile radius would be in an uproar. Six years of Kassams in Sderot has not seemed to spark much in Tel Aviv.

Last Monday, I made the trip from Zichron Yaakov, officially the "north" of the country, in a little under two hours. Towards the end of the drive, right before turning east on route 34, I saw the zeppelin-shaped reconnaissance balloon hovering over the southern edge of the city of Ashkelon. The balloon carries a sophisticated array of cameras and sensory equipment. Looking at it swaying in the wind, it seemed simultaneously ominous and flimsy, a ridiculous-looking, blow-up sentry that is an integral part of what protects us.

I arrived shortly after one in the afternoon. Few cars were in transit on the town's streets. I needed directions to get to the office of Noam Bedein, who runs the Sderot Media Center, which provides foreign journalists with background information and news about the continuous assault on Sderot. After spending ten minutes mentally reviewing the internet-sourced road directions, I parked and walked up the street looking for a local to guide me. After a few moments, I flagged a passing car. Before answering my requsst for directions, the driver briefed me on what to do if and when a "Tzeva Adom," a "red alert," sounded. I asked when the last one had sounded and he looked at me incredulously. Ten minutes earlier, just as I had entered the town limits. I made a mental note to keep the car stereo turned low or off. The announcement of a tzeva adom signals an imminent Kassam explosion, within 20 seconds. I later learned that most Kassams are launched in the morning hours between six and nine, and then at twilight, between seven and ten in the evening. This is done to coincide with Israel's broadcast television news cycle.

Kassam rockets are unpredictable, lethal projectiles capable of travelling up to 10km, around 6 miles. They can carry up to 10kg (22 lb.) of explosive payload. A major portion of this payload is devastating anti-personnel shrapnel: nails, bolts, and other packed bits of sharp metal intended to pierce skin, muscle, bone, and vital organs. These are not weapons intended to damage property or infrastructure; they are meant to injure, kill, and maim civilians. Kassams are meant to terrorize and after seven years of almost daily bombardment, many people in Sderot are indeed terrorized. Children are afraid to go to school and adults fear going outside to go to work.

Israeli defense officials categorize Kassams as "more a psychological rather than physical threat." Though Kassams alone will not physically harm the great majority of citizens in Sderot, their capacity for physical devastation and death is not subject to debate. At least eleven Israelis have lost their lives to Kassam rockets.

What is debatable is whether Israel's artificially-proportionally elected government is performing its mandate of responsibility for safeguarding Israel's citizens. The government of Ehud Olmert has promised a firm response to the Kassams, however even after the latest deaths most talk is of reinforcing structures in Sderot. Mayor Eli Moyal is quick to point out that injuries and deaths from Kassams occur outside. Moyal and his constituents want their national government to eliminate the threat of Kassams period. This means stopping the terrorists who launch the rockets. Unfortunately, there is no way of stopping the terrorists without insulting the politically correct sensibilities of Ehud Olmert's coalition partners, without contradicting the government's commitment to "disengagement."

I arrived at the Sderot Media Center, located at 12 Rakefet Street, nestled in a Dutch style subdivision of private houses. The enterprise was established eight months ago by Noam Bedein, a 24 year-old Ben-Gurion University student who hasn't been to classes much lately, thanks to his work in Sderot and the university student union strike. After serving in the IDF on the Lebanese border, Noam spent a year backpacking Asia. A budding photographer, Noam's prints of bamboo Thai countryside, snowcapped Tibetan peaks, Buddhist monks walking with tigers, and Sderot adorn his living room. If there is a thread that connects them, perhaps it's the beauty and savagery that exist in the real world, beyond the margins of our collective attention. In the near future, he will exhibit photographs and drawings on a more immediate subject, the terror and fear etched in the faces of the citizens of Sderot. Noam and his coworkers try to keep attention riveted on Sderot and provide essential details to help describe what, almost anywhere else, would be an unthinkable situation. An otherwise peaceful town absorbs daily rocket attacks from a clearly identified neighboring territory. The attacks are sanctioned by the neighboring local government, while the sovereign government of this peaceful town refrains from decisive response.

Noam updated me on the two red alerts in Sderot and the nine other Kassams, launched from residential areas in Gaza, that landed elsewhere in Israel's Western Negev that morning. Then Noam guided me on a Kassam-centered tour of Sderot. Our first stop was a home that took a direct hit last Saturday night. A rocket punched a hole in a wall at ground level and peppered shrapnel across a second floor bedroom wall, destroying the room's window. This is typical of Kassams, which usually diperse shrapnel in a reverse umbrella pattern. Fortunately, the twelve year old who normally sleeps in the room was elsewhere in the house at the time of impact.

Shula and David, whose front door walkway was covered in shattered glass, bits of masonry, and other debris, warmly welcomed Noam and me into their home. On our heels, a busload of foreign journalists were shepherded inside by Aryeh Green, director of MediaCentral, a journalist liaison service business in Jerusalem. Shula displayed shrapnel and bits of the rocket tube that remained after the police and army personnel removed most of the rocket's mass. Shula mentioned that neighbors up the street were hit earlier in the month. According to Noam, just about every neighborhood has been hit, sometimes causing property damage and sometimes ripping up the street. Structural repairs are made almost immediately.

After about twenty minutes, a car arrived to take Shula, David, and their sons to a hotel until the structural damage is repaired. Shula and David did not want to leave Sderot, unlike the 65% of Sderot residents who, according to Noam Bedein, have accepted offers at one time or another to leave the town for a short respite. At this point, some estimate that roughtly 20% of Sderot's residents are staying elsewhere.

Noam took me to the center of the commercial area, where a Kassam killed a woman on a street ten days ago. A meter wide crater and a small bouquet of flowers mark the spot; shrapnel gouges can be seen on the buildings on both sides of the street. Many of the businesses are shuttered. We bought felafel from a man named "Prosper," who stated that some looting had taken place. He also remarked how Kassam payloads have become more explosive and damaging over time. His block has suffered several Kassam hits over the years. Noam shows me a row of stores that have been rebuilt. In between the shops are walls that extend a bit into the sidewalk, making the stores look like large cubicles. The compartmentalized design is intended to minimize the shrapnel spread at the point of impact.

Noam guided me past several schools. According to his investigations, none of the schools are completely fortified against rocket attacks. There are however some very peculiar measures taken to at least partially protect the schoolchildren. One school has part of its gabled roof covered in an additional layer of latticed steel. Another has the entire building shaded by a sloping cover whose design reminded me of the some post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies.

We drove past a house where a Kassam had slammed into a third story corner balcony and torn a gaping hole in a side wall. A crack ran from the newly ventilated adjoining bedroom to the opposite side of the house. Noam informed me that a commanding officer of the nearby United Nations peacekeeping force likens Kassams to "firecrackers."

Next, we visited Sderot's police station, where the mangled remains of Kassams are stored in the rear parking lot. Over the past two weeks, 250 deployed missiles have found their way to the scrap heap. You can tell some of the older Kassams by the rust coating the fuselage. All are marked with phosphorescent chalk indicating the date and neighborhood of impact. Some have messages written in Hebrew from their manufacturers. "Al-Quds," Arabic for Jerusalem, is written on one. The fuselage tubes are fashioned from the poles of street signs. The Palestinian Authority apparently views the manufacture of anti-personnel weaponry as a function of civil infrastructure. Before we left, Noam and I tried to find the remains of the rocket that had killed Oshri Oz the day before.

Throughout the afternoon, as we drove through neighborhood after neighborhood, I saw teenagers walking in pairs. Some of the girls dressed in long skirts and sleeves, some in jeans and tank tops. Some of the boys wore kippot, some did not. All were carrying annotated street maps. These were the volunteers of "Lev Echad," Hebrew for "One Heart," a group that has tried to ease the humanitarian fallout of various recent tribulations in Israel. They helped the residents of Kiryat Shmona during rocket barrages last spring and summer. They helped the evicted residents of Gush Katif two years ago. After I finished looking at the spent Kassams at the police station, I visited the offices of Lev Echad. Some volunteers allowed me to take their pictures. Most did not, on instructions from the organizers, who say that they do not yet want to make publicity an issue for the volunteers to deal with.

Lev Echad volunteers were checking homes throughout Sderot for people who needed special help; mothers with young children, families handicapped dependents, elderly or handicapped persons who needed someone to shop for food, otherwise healthy people who succumbed to hysteria and the unrelenting emotional trauma of sirens and explosions. Every evening, Lev Echad stages a parade with flagbearers marching through Sderot, proud, optimistic, defiant of the savagery emanating from the border four kilometers southwest.

In the office courtyard, I noticed a group of volunteers old enough to be the parents of the teenagers and post-army twenty-somethings who made up the vast majority of Lev Echad. These were members of a community service organization from Beit She'an called, "Bonei Kehilah," Hebrew for "Community Builders."

I decided to put off my return trip north for a couple of hours to help with Lev Echad's efforts to follow up on individuals and families who had requested help. I was paired with twenty year-old Gilad, who was spending two days, out of his weeklong army furlough from army service, volunteering in Sderot. Meeting Gilad reminded me that it is individuals, not committees, who move the earth. We visited families, who were happy to have Lev Echad volunteers ask about them.

Gilad dropped me off at my car shortly after seven in the evening and I left Sderot shortly before Lev Echad's parade. Two Kassams landed in or near Sderot an hour or so after I left. Not far north of Sderot, I passed the hastily constructed housing project for evicted ex-Gush Katif residents in Nitzanim. I thought of the insult of added to the injury of these families. These Israeli patriots had lived for decades, much of the time in peace with their Arab neighbors, cultivating the land with citrus and vegetable crops of the highest quality. They were forcibly uprooted in order to let the Palestinians prove that they could govern Gaza peacefully. Now, they live within earshot of the missiles falling so close by. They know that Hamas and Al-Aqsa brigades are using the land in and around Gush Katif, their former homes, to stage deadly rocket attacks.

Why did I go down to Sderot and what does it have to do with Direct Representation? I needed to see what was real. The same bubble of self-delusion that lets many of us believe that Israel's democracy is sound also lulls us into thinking that Sderot is someone else's problem. If we do not act, speak out, or even bear witness as individuals, then we, as a society, will achieve and fix nothing. Direct Representation for Israel proposes the selection of our leaders and representatives as individuals; individuals chosen by the public because they are of the public and will work for the public. Individuals whose sense of moral clarity would not allow Sderot to suffer under Kassams for one month, let alone seven years. I found hope and moral clarity in some very special individuals in Sderot. People like Gilad and the other Lev Echad volunteers, who won't let citizens in Sderot suffer neglect. People like Noam Bedein, who won't let the world ignore Sderot. I spoke one-to-one to some about the need to assert individual responsibility as a political foundation, to institutionalize this in the way we choose our representatives and leader. For the most part, I found a receptive audience.

You can contact Lev Echad at 054-7587462/3.

How Difficult Can it Be?

2007-04-17T12:49:00.000+03:00

As the Hebrew saying goes, "all beginnings are difficult." This rings true with nascent national movements, especially movements aspiring to real change in Israel. For months, we've been planning to form a recognized amutah (non-profit organization) with tax-exempt status, a step that would enable us to operate with tax exempt cash flow and for donors to receive tax deductible credit. This has not been a trivial undertaking and here's why.

In a 1990 Israeli legal precedent, an organization called "Constitution for Israel" failed to attain tax-exempt non-profit status from the Ministry of the Finance. According to Israeli tax law, tax exempt status can be conferred on four types of organizations: local municipalities, Mifal HaPayis (national lottery), retirement investment funds, and "public institutions." "Public institutions" are dedicated solely to "public purposes," and "public purposes" are defined by tax law as those related to "religion, culture, education, science, health, nourishment, sport, and other causes approved by the finance minister as public purposes."

Constitution for Israel sued the Finance Ministry, however the Supreme Court ruled in support of the then finance minister. "Constitution for Israel," the court opined, was not an institution with "only" cultural and/or educational purposes, not an organization "whose assets and income were used only for the attainment of public goals." According to the court, "Constitution for Israel" also wanted to influence legislation promoting a written constitution for the state of Israel. In other words, Constitution for Israel's public purposes became impure because the political realm was engaged in the service of those same purposes.

The Aharon Barak Supreme Court also rejected the argument that the finance minister was acting with any sort of political bias. No political bias? Many non-profit, public-minded institutions extend their mandates to influence political outcomes, which in turn serve the values of these organizations. The Israel Cancer Society has rightly lobbied and influenced legislation when it comes to tobacco and smoking restrictions. Religious organizations, including yeshivot, become involved with political initiatives when policy affects religious life. Constitution for Israel, however, sought to promote a process that would more clearly define the court's authority and its power in relation to other branches of government. Indeed, the selective denial of tax exempt status to organizations with public purposes could be viewed as a prime example of self-serving political bias. It exemplifies why our political system is a national embarrassment.

Practically speaking, most non-government non-profit organizations require tax-deductible status in order to recruit funding. The Israeli Supreme Court has effectively limited citizens who form the public from choosing, with their wallets, what they think is important for the public. The continued influence of that precedent underscores the gaping absence of public service norms; applied values which our organization seeks to instate. It also indicates the depth of the challenge that we must take on.

We are being advised by legal and accounting professionals to navigate the application processes with the non-profit registrar and the Ministry of Finance. This is a difficult time for us, but we are moving forward. The educational, cultural designation is, in fact, quite appropriate to our organization's mandate and goals. We have maintained, all along, that our goal is to revitalize a culture of citizen participation and empowerment as a bottom-up, grass roots initiative; that the route to real change runs via the Israeli public.

We will meet the challenges ahead of us and continue to organize whatever the immediate bureaucratic outcomes.

How our system helps our enemies

2007-01-31T22:47:00.000+02:00

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.

Israel's Fear Of Its Majority

2006-12-24T22:34:00.000+02:00

Today saw the third meeting of the Knesset's constitution and law committee. The topic of defining Israel's Jewish democracy was continued. It looks as if the committee will vote to include some mention of Israel's Arab minority and possibly a characterization of Israel as a parliamentary democracy. I would not be surprised if "proportionalism" will also be proposed. These specifications would be very detrimental to the principles of public service to a citizens' constituency based on individual rights.

The following is a draft version of an opinion piece I'll be sending out soon.

Israel's Fear of its Majority

“The people have spoken,” reads a type of bumper sticker that you can find on many Israeli cars, applied to a wide variety of political stands. “The majority wants...,” is another ubiquitous refrain appended with many, sometimes contradictory, claims. Political PR efforts, supporting various initiatives and campaigns, produce such slogans to resonate with a democratic principle of majority supposedly shared by Israel's mainstream public.

In practice, Israel's political establishment rarely makes an effort to satisfy the will of any popular majority and, except for limited survey samplings by political interests, rarely polls its public. When Israelis go to the polls during elections, they don't have the final word regarding specifically who will fill the seats in their legislature. In Israel's proportional system, that privilege is left to the party central committees, who get a number of seats in proportion to their share of the popular, nationwide vote. So, there is no direct, personal representation between sitting legislators and any body of citizen constituents.

The political philosophy behind Israel's system election and its government decision-making prevents the formation of an Israeli popular majority that will dictate a national direction. Since the founding of the state, no election has seen a single party receiving a popular majority of votes. Rather than vote for a person to act as a representative and public servant of a constituency, Israelis vote for a party on the basis of the party philosophy. Benefits of this system have been dubious; setbacks include nothing less than the disintegration of Israel's national identity and its collective will. Looking forward to the future, the political and social consequences may turn out to be existentially catastrophic.

The system of post-election coalition bargaining, part and parcel of our parliamentary system, effectively removes almost any influence a popular majority might have over policymaking in the executive part of the government. The party tapped to form the government will do almost anything, including reverse its pre-election platform policy if necessary, to satisfy the minimum number of coalition partners. When the promises are empty and citizens cannot hold their representatives individually to account, citizen involvement drops; public dialogue and debate deteriorate to mere slogans and eventually disappear.

The factional system generated through proportional elections produces a weak sense of public cohesion. This, in turn, produces either weak leaders who cater to strong narrow interests or despotic leaders who act with impunity and little respect for public interests or sentiment. One case in point is Ehud Olmert, perhaps the weakest prime minister in Israel's history, who stated in an interview before Rosh Hashanah, “A prime minister has to run a country. He doesn't have to have an agenda.” An example of despotism can be seen in Ariel Sharon's 2005 rape of Israel's political norms, enabled by the weak separation between the legislature and the executive branch, a weakness facilitated by parliamentary design. It is also questionable whether this system benefits minorities over the long term, given the capricious rotation of coalition partners that occurs when it suits the individuals heading a coalition government.

In contrast, majoritarian or “direct” elections, in which candidates compete personally for single seats in geographically distributed electoral districts, encourage public debate and the consolidation of diverse interests behind fewer candidates for public office. When only one will be elected, the diverse interests in a constituency do their best to find common cause with others in order to gain influence with a popular candidate. Minority interests find political “homes” within larger camps as long as there are not contradictions with the interests or values of the larger party. In this way, over the course of majoritarian elections, popular majorities organically take form within heterogeneous populations. In turn, national identities take shape and gather strength through a heterogeneous unity. Furthermore, collective bargaining among interests take place before the election, in stark contrast to the proportional, parliamentary system. As a result, citizens can make more powerful, more dependable choices.

In such systems, political parties do their best to engage public participation beyond the vote itself. Promises made before an election are more credible because winning candidates are personally accountable to their citizens and generally plan to run for more than a single term. A line of empowerment from constituency to representative exists in parallel to a line of accountability from representative to constituency. When citizens realize they really have the influence to choose their representatives, they have long memories of their representatives' promises and performance.

So, why does Israel maintain a system of politics that prevents the formation of a popular majority? The answer itself is very, very undemocratic. Put simply, the system is designed to lock in the “status quo,” the assumed balance of power distributed among the leaders of political factions. This reverence of the status quo is most readily apparent by the lack of public debate and dialogue running up to national elections. Most of Israel's political and academic elite fear a popular majority because it could shatter age old power sharing agreements between leaders of several different communities. For this reason, the power elites oppose changes to political proportionalism and parliamentarism.

The reverence of the status quo presumes that Israel's inter-community struggles are best avoided through institutionalized factional divisions. According to this logic, political and demographic separations between ethnic communities within a country prevent friction. According to this logic, diverse ethnic communities could never find sufficient common ground to live within a single public, subject to a mainstream unifying political culture. This principle, which has been applied since the founding of the state, is erroneous because a democracy cannot long survive with separate standards for different communities. It is dangerous because it actually stymies a national consensus to form in an enlightened public while it hobbles a nation's ability to adapt to its own environmental changes.

Consider the converse principle. When the significant unit of political entitlement is the individual citizen, when ethnic groups are not institutionalized to form official government entities, there is a greater chance of preventing struggles between groups and of individuals from diverse communities finding common cause. This does not deny the existence of minority communities; it signifies that individual citizens, through their directly elected representatives, will influence how the government relates to these communities. The factions committed to living under the principles of Jewish democracy, including moderate Haredim, must accept this as the only way a Jewish national resolve can survive. Factions committed to the eradication of a Jewish democracy, including anti-Zionist and radical factions, will be marginalized as they become politically non-viable in the mainstream.

Israel's near term future is filled with difficult choices. We face challenges of a growing population and growing infrastructure needs in a land with limited resources. We face numerous challenges in the global economy. We face powerful foes dedicated to our eradication. We face the dilemma of whether to make risky concessions or to defy international pressure to serve national interests. In light of these real challenges, our country cannot survive without public confidence in its government and united commitment to its national well-being. To our detriment, however, we are politically ill-equipped to face this reality. There are quantitative and qualitative indicators showing that our national will and national cohesion are deteriorating to a dangerously low level of commitment. Israel's national will, based on the shared identity of its citizens, stands a chance of healing only when the converse of the status quo principle, the majoritarian principle, is applied. Israel must make the momentous decision to slaughter the sacred cow of the status quo and serve the sovereignty of an emergent popular majority.

Constitutional Committee 10 December 2006

2006-12-12T00:34:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, the Knesset's Committee on Constitution, Law, and Justice met for the second time under the leadership of Menachem Ben-Sasson. This meeting concentrated on the issue of the interests and considerations of Israel's Arab citizens.

Present: Menachem Ben-Sasson (Chair-Kadima), Colette Avital (Labor), Haim Oron (Meretz), Aryeh Eldad (National Unity - NRP), Moshe Gafney (Torah Judaism), Amira Dotan (Kadima), Matan Vilnai (Labor), Nissim Zeev (Shas), Avraham Michaeli (Shas), Avraham Ravitz (Torah Judaism), Reuven Rivlin (Likud), and Otniel Schneller (Kadima).

The legal consultant described a proposed clause that explicitly mentioned that the group rights of minorities, especially the Arab minority, would be recognized. This, of course, is highly problematic. Firstly, from an civil rights perspective, such a clause is completely unnecessary. There will certainly be clauses protecting the individual rights of every Israeli citizen, regardless of sex, race, religion, or ethnicity, and this should be the last word on civil rights. The proposed clause is highly problematic because it explicitly and implicitly sanctions differential treatment of members of minority groups.

Explicitly acknowledging the rights of an Arab minority, as a community and not only as individual citizens, can be interpreted as a license for the Arab community to have a different legal code than non-Arabs. Indeed, this concept surfaced later in the session.

Elyakim Rubenstein, of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center presented his views that the constitution will honor the rights of the Arab minority.

A scholar on Arab Affairs, Michael Kariani, was invited to address the committee. He stated that he would speak from his own personal perspective. Kariani began by quoting the recently released Iraq Study Group report commissioned by President George W. Bush. The group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III, whose anti-Israel biases are widely acknowledged, declared that the Arab-Israeli conflict is inextricably linked to Iraq and, by implication, to every other issue of instability in the Middle East. Bush has distanced himself from that and other highly problematic conclusions of the report. That Kariani would raise the report, as an introduction to his comment on the constitution, is a clear indication of the rhetorical ammunition he plans to use and to what purpose. Labeling the Arab-Israeli conflict the central cause of instability in the Middle East has been the excuse of dictators and anti-Semitic terror apologists for decades.

The meat of Kariani's address was a basic opposition to a constitution, especially one that declared Israel a Jewish and democratic state, unless there were clear safeguards and benefits for the Arab community. He called for continuing dialogue between the two communities. The clear message was that Israeli Arabs who feel like Kariani would continue and amplify their efforts to secure a special status as a "nation within a nation." The best we will be able to hope for is not a single heterogeneous, integrated Jewish/Muslim/Christian public, but a dual-national, sectarian arrangement.

Next up was Yisrael Harel, of the Institute for Zionist Strategy. Harel stressed the need to attain a "constitution of consensus" while a consensus exists. Harel doesn't realize that a consensus does not exist and will never exist; that the only hope for a constitution, and for a continued Zionist viability, is an appeal to a wide popular majority. Only by allowing a popular Zionist majority to form will Harel be able to help the country's political system withstand the challenges from both the narrow interests and the Arab, anti-Zionist minority.

Prof. Eli Reches, an Arab-affairs expert from Tel Aviv University, provided further perspective from the Arab community. Among his observations and conclusions:

Israeli Arabs are increasingly becoming involved with the Palestinian national movement.
Israeli Arabs don't see themselves as part of a national solution.
An amalgamation of all Arab subgroups.
A separation of Israel's democratic and Jewish characteristics in the eyes of Israeli Arabs.
An increased activation of Naqbah rhetoric.
Israeli Arab view of Israel as a continuation of European colonialism.

In short, according to Reches, the Israeli Arab community is increasingly falling into lockstep with the PLO narrative that invalidates and delegitimizes Israel's sovereignty. Again, this underscores the need for Israel's political system to enable a popular majority to form. This will not happen under the current proportional system, that effectively prevents the formation of a popular political majority.

The big surprise of the meeting was the pronouncement of Torah Judaism's Moshe Gafney. Gafney stated that his Haredi faction would welcome a constitution because it is the only way to stop the Supreme Court from legislating from the bench, almost always with a pronounced bias in favor of Arab and extreme left positions and against traditional, Orthodox Jewish religious positions. Gafney also qualified his support of a constitution with the caveat that it would have to be "thick" enough to ensure Haredi interests, i.e., the Haredi veto. This, of course, would be disastrous in that it would alienate most of mainstream Israel, in addition to being ethically unsound.

More than ever, I'm convinced that Israel faces systemic political challenges that could make it impossible for it to face its physical existential threats. Israel's lack of a popular majority weakens its posture in the face of an increasingly antagonistic Arab minority. Furthermore, the willingness of Israel's political elite (Meretz, Labor, Kadima) to officially accommodate Arab nationalism is tantamount to Zionist suicide.

First Meeting of the Constitutional Committee

2006-11-26T17:08:00.000+02:00

On Sunday morning, 26 November 2006, the inaugural meeting of the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee was convened under the new leadership of MK Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson (Kadima). This was roughly a month following the three-day information seminar (that I described in my last blog entry).

MKs present included Ben-Sasson, Moshe Gafney (Torah Judaism), Matan Vilnai (Labor), Nissim Zeev (Shas), Yitzhak Levy (National Union-NRP), Avraham Michaeli (Shas), Otniel Schneller (Kadima), Avraham Ravitz (Torah Judaism), and Reuven Rivlin (Likud).

Committee members (according to the Knesset web site) not present included Michael Eitan (Likud), Yitzhak Galant (Gil), Collette Avital (Labor), Azmi Bishara (National Democratic Assembly), Talab El-Sana (Arab Democratic Party-United Arab List), Zahava Gal'on (Meretz), Amira Dotan (Kadima), Danny Yatom (Labor), Limor Livnat (Likud), Danny Naveh (Likud), and Ophir Pines-Paz (Labor).

Not much actually occurred during this meeting. There were the expected opening remarks about the importance of the committee's work and some ground rules regarding decorum.

First, a draft proposal of the first chapter, under the heading "Democracy," defines Israel's democratic character as "parliamentary." This likely prejudices the outcome against a presidential system and therefore against a strong separation between legislative and exective branches.

Second, among the nine MKs present at this first meeting, four represented Haredi parties who are likely opposed to any significant changes towards either a presidential system, towards direct election of MKs, or towards majoritarian principles of government.

Third, at one point in the meeting, Moshe Gafney (Torah Judaism) openly stated that his party insisted on veto powers (presemably regarding specific categories of law) and that any changes at all would have to maintain that veto.

To sum up, the new Constitution and Law Committee does not seem very receptive to any significant changes to the current proportional, parliamentary system. The direction is towards some tweaks that still rely on the "goodwill" of officials still appointed by party central committees. As I've mentioned for quite some time, any real changes will have to come from immense popular pressure.

The Israeli body politic will reduce the undue influence of small, narrow interest parties when it accepts a majority system of elections and abandons the mischaracterized "proportional system." The only proportional constituency represented by the current system is the population of party dealmakers.

Olmert's Grand Plan

2006-11-22T09:06:00.000+02:00

Ehud Olmert has discovered political religion. The man who instantly leapt from number 13 on the Likud list to lead Kadima when Sharon was stricken, the operator who ran on a platform of no substance, the pol who made millions on real estate deals while in public office, the hack who, along with Sharon, welched on Likud voters by making Gaza a "self-governing" terrorist stronghold, would like us to believe that he favors principled reform.

His suggestions? First, he'd like to make it difficult or impossible for the Knesset to challenge the legitimacy of the prime minister's office. He wants to set a minimum of 66 MKs to pass a no-confidence motion and a minimum of 73 to dissolve Knesset.

Second, he'd like to empower the prime minister to dissolve the Knesset without disbanding the prime minister's office.

Third, there are changes intended to separate the cabinet from the legislature and make it more responsible to the chief executive, i.e, the PM, and subject to the PM's policy decisions. The cabinet itself would be limited to 18 ministers, one-fourth of whom would be experts in their fields who did not run for Knesset. MKs appointed ministers would quit the Knesset, but could return if they left their ministerial post.

This is reform, right? The prime minister will be empowered to implement policy, right? But there is an overpowering stench to this initiative of Olmert's. It's the stench of doublespeak and exploitation; the stench of powerhungry manipulation and demagoguery. It is the ever-growing stench of counterfeit democracy and the abuse of the privileges of public service.

Yes, the executive branch should be redesigned to operate separately from the legislature. Israel would benefit greatly from a presidential system that treats the executive branch as a public service, corporate, professional entity. Yes, government ministers must not serve concurrently as MKs, as the present system harbors a terrible conflict of interests; ministers vote on their own budgets and influence their own oversight. Yes, government ministers should be professional experts in their fields.

It is also the case that separate branches should not easily control each other, or influence the selection of each other's members. In a proper, balanced presidential system, a chief executive should not be able to dictate who shall sit in the legislature and the legislature should not be able to dictate whom the chief executive should choose to serve as his ministerial counsel.

The key word here, the principle that Olmert is either ignoring or eschewing, is that of balance. More specifically, Olmert's proposal lacks a sufficient means of balancing the powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Olmert's suggestion that a chief executive should be able to dismiss or disband the legislature, the governmental body that most directly represents the public, is a grotesque mischaracterization of responsible presidential privilege.

If Ehud Olmert truly wants to stabilize the Israeli government and empower his executive office, presumably for the sake of efficiency, accountability, and service, then there is a simple and highly effective model that has been operating for over two hundred years. It is the American presidential system that incorporates strong checks and balances against abuses of power while allowing the chief executive to fulfill a mandate as chosen by a majority of voters in his direct election.

James Madison's brilliant prescriptive analysis of the balance of powers can be found in The Federalist Papers, which should be required reading of our lawmakers, pundits, and concerned citizens.

"It is ... evident, that none of them (i.e., governmental branches,) ought to possess, directly or indirectly, an overruling influence over the others, in the administration of their respective powers... the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others."

As Thomas Jefferson is quoted from that same document, "the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others... the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time."

So, Ehud, it makes sense that the legislature should respect the mandate of a chief executive in executing policy. What you'd better learn is that it's even more important that you keep your greedy hands off the sovereignty of the legislature in passing the laws and in checking the executive branch against abuses of power. If you should have the right to serve out a term as chief of the executive branch, then barring extreme circumstances so should every popularly elected legislator in the Knesset.

It is time for our political leaders to stop looking at failed, poorly applied European models, and look westward to a system that has never compromised on values of majority rule and individual political responsibility. Yes, we need a presidential system that allows strong leadership in executing policy; a system that rewards and validates that leadership when it excels. At the same time, we need a strong legislature, secure in its mandate to legislate the laws or our country with limited hindrance from the executive and legislative branches. The separation without balance that Olmert proposes would tip the balance of power in government heavily in favor of the executive. It is either through sheer ignorance of democratic political theory that he proposes it, or it is a self-serving power strategem worthy of dictators and soviet-style state tyranny.

In addition to a balanced presidential system that separates government branches, we need a system that helps its society form broad majorities of wide interests, complex enough that they may incorporate many categories of social minorities. This can't happen with a proportional system of electing legislative representatives. Proportionalism, after all, rewards divisiveness as smaller groups with narrow interests tip the balance of influence among larger players. The formation of a political social majority can only happen within a true majority system, in which a single representative is elected in each electoral district.

It is about time that Israel's pundits and talking heads stopped trying to perform plastic surgery to make an inefficient, divisive parliamentary system look and act like a presidential republic. We deserve and need the real thing.

Having Words

2006-10-23T02:16:00.000+02:00

Last Thursday, the Knesset committee on the constitution, chaird by Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson, began a three-day conference, which continued today and will conclude on Tuesday. Today's afternoon session discussed forms of government.

Over the course of three hours, the newly cobbled Hebrew word for accountability, "achrayutiut" was evoked several times. Any student of Hebrew grammar and etymology can tell you that this is a nonsense word. The ut suffix suffix changes "achrai" (responsible) into "achrayut" (responsibility). The new word, "achrayut-i-ut" is the result of tacking on a second morphing ut suffix. The morphological English equivalent of achrayutiut would be something like "responsibility-ism" or "responsibility-ness," a far cry from "accountability."

Around the time achrayutiut was being accorded a stamp of approval by Israel's academic political elite (but not by its academic linguistic elite), another Hebrew equivalent for accountability was making a much smaller splash across the national palate. "davchanut" (note the single ut) morphed directly out of the Hebrew root for "account" or "report," "le-daveach."

The dominant acceptance of achrayutiut over davchanut by the political elite says a great deal about the elite's (lack of) readiness to address the issue of public accountability. The difference between these two expressions is the difference between responsibility to act in the best interests of some entity and the accountability that can include a public justification of one's deeds. Parents are responsible to their children, however they are not normally held accountable by their children. An employee, in contrast, is responsible to his employer and normally must account for his actions through reports or third party observations. achrayut applied in the political context conceptualizes the elected official as an empowered guardian of the public rather than an empowered public servant.

This distinction was completely lost on the academic panel.

This occurence reflects the broader inability of the Israeli political elite to consider anything but a proportional electoral system. Proportionalism removes individual accountability from the political equation by officially removing the individual significance of the politician from the public's choice. It treats its sectarian, partisan constituencies like adopted wards, focusing on serving the declared interests of the party membershp but feeling little need for individual MKs to justify their actions to any public at large. The linguistic preference does not bode well for any emergent system that will place individual accountability of MKs at the head of the national political agenda.

As I walked through the Knesset, I ran into Prof. Yitzhak Gal-Noor of the Hebrew University, one of the academic panelists, none of whom had anything positive to say about the presidential system. He commented that nothing about the American system of government is applicable to Israel. When I asked why, what was so different about Israel, for lack of any specific reason, he simply said, "Because we are more European."

This one statement has affirmed every assumption I have had regarding the political and cultural preferences of the influential elite in Israel. This elite seeks to emulate Europe, to be part of Europe, and so bends over backwards at its own existential peril to curry favor with Europe. Part of this fawning is apparently the avoidance of any conceptual association with the United States, despite the latter's status as Israel's closest, most supportive strategic ally. In the eyes of the Euro-centric academic elite, any footfall in the direction of American values is simply unacceptable on its face.

Israel, like the United States and unlike most European states, is a country of immigrants. Most Israeli immigrants have arrived within the last thirty years, from non-European countries. Both Israel and the United States are multicultural. How ironic that the Israeli elite seeks towards European political values when those values have classically failed to serve Jewish interests except for the briefest periods in history.

The given dominant paradigm of the Israeli elite assumes that without proportional representation, the fabric of Israeli society will unravel. It assumes that Israelis, whether Arab, Jewish, Haredi, Secular, Muslim, Christian, Ethiopian, Sabra, - whatever - are simply incapable of thinking as individuals or of electing officials as individuals. How incredibly and outrageously demeaning! How fitting with proportionalism's notion that the sub-collective, the party central committee, must be the individual's thinking proxy. Again, how consonant with political achrayutiut over political davchanut.

These academics refuse to see that when government is provides factions with quasi-official status, through proportional party representation, the walls of factionalism become ever stronger, as do the rewards of political separatism. When the individual is forced to choose a collective as a political mediator, rather than vote for an individual representative, public service based on individual responsibility and accessibility suffers. These academics deny the reality that every individual citizen is his own minority with his own unique set of needs, outlooks, and aspirations.

In my comments, I stated that conflicts of interest are inherent in every parliamentary system, a point Prof. Reuven Chazan flatly denied. Well, technically, there might be some arrangement in which a parliamentary system could effectively prevent legislators from situations in which they have to compromise their responsibility to the public. However, as long as the legislature is charged with protecting citizens against abuses of executive power, the executive and legislative branches must be hermetically separated. In every parliamentary system that I know of, there is either no separation at all, or there are paper-thin pseudo-separations. Chazan supports the Norwegian system, in which legislators who become ministers give up their legislative positions and the seat is filled by that legislator's party's choice. This is not a conflict of interests?

The party's choice still bypasses direct citizen choice of particular representation.
Factionalism and narrow interests, rather majority interests, dictate policies.

The only way that this, and most, parliamentary systems might argue that they do not entrench conflicts of interest is by arguing that every legislator and every citizen fits neatly into a perfectly matched party philosophy.

Israel's Ersatz Democracy

2006-06-14T10:55:00.000+03:00

It's been some time since my first post. Over the past fifteen months I've tried in my limited way to recruit new members to the (English and Hebrew) mailing lists. Some wonderful people have hosted, and offered to host, parlor meetings. Still, despite best intentions, excuses have vastly outnumbered even the smallest of commitments. It can be maddening.

What has become apparent is the national malaise that paralyzes Israelis from real introspection and even minimal action of true self-interest. There is a widespread, personal surrender to mediocrity in Israel. We can see it in the educational system, we can see it in the government (, especially in our ineffective defense minister), and we can see it in law enforcement (as evidenced by Israel's continued infamy in human traficking, domestic violence, and non-enforcement of smoking restrictions). Another prominent indication of this mediocrity is the Israel Democracy Institute's "Constitution of Consensus."

Of course, Israel needs a constitution. We desperately need a clearer structuring of the mechanisms of government. We especially need to rein in our ambitious, but technically mediocre High Court of Justice. We need to prevent the disastrous conflicts of interest that accompany every legislator who becomes a government minister. We need to solidify our national purpose and identity. Unfortunately, the "Constitution of Consensus," or CoC, will result in none of these needed outcomes.

Largely, the CoC codifies the status quo. This should hardly be surprising as it was built into the drafting process. Rather than start with clear, effective principles of individual responsibility and public service, the Israel Democracy Institute, the IDI, focused its standards on "compromise and consensus." It brought together representatives of "various groups that make up Israeli society" to form what it considered to be a "public council." In other words, it repeated to some degree the process that occurs within the major political parties at every election. It placed people in categorical groups and sought to satisfy each group's interests in order to achieve "consensus." The "compromise" consisted of seeking to predetermine and/or circumvent decisions of political norms that should remain within the mandate of an elected legislature. They do this , in order to presumptuously "defuse the tensions" surrounding such supposedly thorny issues as Shabbat, marriage, divorce, etc.

What the IDI fails to grasp is that a democratic constitution must avoid predetermining these issues. Democracy is not just a state of affairs, it is a process. As a core document defining a working structure of government, the constitution must stick to the most basic governing relationship between the individual citizen and the state. Beyond a definition of citizenship criteria, there is no place for any formal or informal recognition of subgroups as having any influence or relative advantage in the way government functions. Issues of minority interests must play out in the political arena through processes of public discourse and legislation. For in any effective and true democracy, every individual citizen is a minority and deserves to be considered the ultimate unit of measured political influence.

The CoC also declares that Israel's legislative representation should stick to a proportional system. This perpetuates the disastrous and misguided notion that collectives are the best measure of political participation. This conclusion continues and exacerbates the tremendous waste in governing potential that has plagued Israel from inception as a modern state. When a nation officially predetermines itself as a number of categorized subgroups, its hope for a unified national identity is doomed. We can see this process of social decay in the proportional democracies of Europe as well as in Israel.

Compare this with the success and prosperity of the United States. The American Experience has shown that the democratic process reaffirms itself when it concentrates on the rights and responsibilities of the individual, not the collective, in influencing the nation's destiny. This is because individuals, with overlapping shared interests, are much more likely than sectarian groups to come to mutually beneficial decisions. Individuals are far more able than interest groups to adapt to changing situations and they are far more open to diverse propositions. There is nothing wrong with organizing active interest groups within democracy. However, there is something terribly wrong when interest groups acquire a formalized status within government, and thereby compromise the standing of the individual citizen. Unfortunately, the IDI, and several influential factors in Israeli government and society, are intent on following European models of democracy instead of the U.S. model.

Even more unfortunate is the IDI's promotion of a groupthink form of "consensus." This is an insult to every individual citizen in Israel in that it frames every subsequent debate in terms of group interests, as if the typical Israeli is incapable of individual, independent, and reasoned thought.

An Israeli constitution should be based on three basic operating principles.

The State of Israel is the Jewish national homeland dedicated to the well-being of the Jewish people and Jewish values.
The government of Israel exists to serve the public of individual Israeli citizens, as electorally represented by individual Israeli citizens.
The government of Israel shall be formed of three separate branches (legislative, executive, and judicial) which will check each other in order to operate efficiently and to prevent abuses of government power.

On the basis of these principles, we should have a directly and separately elected chief executive who will manage the executive branch as an efficient public service organization. hw will have the discretion to staff the executive managerial staff with individuals confirmed by the legislature. No individual should serve concurrently in more than one branch of government. The legislature should be elected in order to represent Israelis as individuals, not as political collectives. For this reason, every single Member of Knesset should be elected as the single representative of an electoral district.

No, democratic nations are not formed primarily on "compromise" and "consensus." Compromise and consensus are part of the natural political interplay among informed, empowered individuals. Nations are built primarily upon clear values and national purpose. The "Constitution of Consensus" is a cheap, mediocre facade. The real constitution that will serve the Jewish State will be written only once we have a system of true Israeli representation and responsible public service government. Let us pray we make it to that fine day.

Welcome!

2005-03-15T17:52:00.000+02:00

This blog is for people who love Israel... and hate the way Israel's political system is crushing the hope for honest, decent government.

Israel's proportional system of election to the Knesset has guaranteed that small, narrow-interest parties will stymie political and social progress in the country. Israel's proportional system makes Members of Knesset responsible first and foremost to the party leadership, not to the people. The coalition system of government formation guarantees that political cronies, rather than competent professionals, will manage crucial government offices. Scandals that would be outrageous in decent democratic systems are commonplace and accepted here.

It's time for a change, time to take an accounting and open our eyes. Israel needs a constitution. Israel needs a solid system of political checks and balances. Israel needs a political culture of accountability and individual responsibility among its lawmakers.

Israelis and those who love Israel must come together to make this happen. Today's Israeli politicians certainly aren't motivated to make such a change, so it has to come from Israel's grass roots and from supporters abroad. We can do this.

This blog will follow the progress towards these changes. For more information on Direct Representation for Israel, go to http://www.directrepisrael.org/EN/