Something Israel’s government can do

Many opine that a government in so precarious a political position will be unable to take policy initiatives of any substance. This may indeed be so, but there is one area where it could make a difference.

The government is a coalition formed from no less than eight of the 20 parties that won seats in the new parliament. In one way this could be considered a wonderful example of the national interest trumping purely party concerns, but there is a downside: Not a single Israeli voter in the 2021 general election will see the policies they voted for put into effect. This is because there is almost no connection between the votes cast by ordinary citizens at the polling station and the nature of the government that eventually emerges. Their votes can simply help the party of their choice to be represented in the Knesset by some remote politicians of whom they know nothing.

In many democracies, the person or party that receives the most votes forms the new government. That is the case in the US and the UK. Israel is among those where elections are followed by weeks and often months of back-room haggling and bargaining. During this process, political parties usually water down, or sometimes abandon, key aspects of the political programs they presented to the electorate. The loser in this unsavory process, which is often about the offer of cabinet posts in exchange for support, is the voter.

One major difference between Israel’s electoral system and that of most other Western democracies is the lack of any direct connection between the people who gain a seat in the Knesset and ordinary Israeli voters. US representatives and senators, for example, are voted into Congress by their home constituencies, and remain intimately connected to them. In the UK, members of parliament each have to compete for the votes of their own electorate.

Britain’s method is virtually the complete opposite of Israel’s. Party lists are an unknown phenomenon. The United Kingdom is divided into 650 constituencies, each of which elects one member to parliament. The candidate in each constituency who wins the most votes is elected, regardless of how many votes are cast for other candidates. This is known as “first past the post” (FPTP), a system also popular across the States, although other voting methods are also used locally.

LIKE ALL electoral systems, it is far from perfect. In the UK, because proportional representation does not feature, its main disadvantage is its failure to match the national voting pattern with seats in parliament. Its main advantage is that all voters have their own MP to whom they can go for help regardless of political affiliation, while all MPs take a particular concern for welfare of their own constituencies.

“The urgent need for electoral reform of Israel’s parliamentary system,” says the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, “is widely, if not universally, recognized.” It goes on to point out that electoral reform can be enacted only by the Knesset, which is composed of parties and individuals whose political life may be threatened by that reform. “Political suicide,” remarks the JCPA, “has never been popular – certainly not in Israel.”

Radical reforms have been suggested by committees and working parties over the years, but none has got past a first reading in the Knesset. Certain small changes to the electoral system have indeed been carried out, together with one short-lived experiment in the direct election of the prime minister, but the current model has never been significantly altered.

If the domestic political turmoil of the past two years reveals anything, it is surely that Israel’s current electoral system is far from perfect. This seems the ideal opportunity to put it under the microscope, with a view to considering what changes might be desirable and practicable.

How might such a scrutiny best be effected? The JCPA’s own suggestion strikes a fiery note. It asserts that the only way to bring about reform is by what it calls a “citizens’ revolt” – a major campaign aimed at gathering up to a million signatures on a petition demanding electoral reform, to be followed by a march to Jerusalem when the petition would be presented to the Knesset. “This,” it concludes, “is the only way to effect a breakdown of the present resistance to electoral reform on the part of the powers that be.”

In the UK, when really major issues require forensic examination and recommendations for government action, what is known as a royal commission is sometimes established. When selecting the chair and commission members, the greatest care is taken to ensure that only individuals of the highest integrity and with the greatest expertise are appointed. The last such commission, in 2000, was concerned with reform of the House of Lords and culminated in a report containing 132 recommendations.

Israel’s electoral system in its present state would seem to be a prime candidate for such a process – a dispassionate examination by constitutional experts, able to conduct a root and branch analysis, to compare it with other democratic systems, and to make recommendations for change. It is especially fortunate that a mechanism akin to the UK’s royal commission is available. In October 2000, at the beginning of the Second Intifada, the Israeli government set up the Or Commission – officially a “Commission of Inquiry into the Clashes Between Security Forces and Israeli Citizens in October 2000.”

If the new unity government does nothing else during its time in power, it should surely take the first steps toward providing Israel with an electoral system better suited to its needs – an ideal initiative for new Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar to take on board.