O pinion
It’s Time for Electoral Reform in Israel Tobin
BY DANIEL J. SAMET
ON APRIL 9, Israeli voters
will head to the polls to select
the 21st Knesset. This cam-
paign, as in past years, features
many parties vying for 120
seats — a whopping 12 parlia-
mentary groups are currently
represented in the Knesset.

Polling indicates that Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
conservative Likud Party will
win between 25 and 29 seats,
well below the 61 needed for
a parliamentary majority. The
Israel Resilience Party, a new
faction led by ex-general Benny
Gantz, should pose a strong
center-left challenge to Likud,
whereas the country’s once-for-
midable Labor Party may pick
up only seven or eight seats.

Following the elections,
Israel will find itself in a
familiar quagmire: The prime
minister will cobble together
disparate parties in a ruling
coalition that shares few legis-
lative priorities.

Israel’s volatile political
scene results from a low elec-
toral threshold. Parties need to
take only 3.25 percent of the
vote to return a member of the
Knesset (MK). Such a system
ensures the gamut of political
parties will be represented.

Israel is a divided nation, and
the electoral system worsens
its divisions.

A raise in the minimum
threshold would force parties
to appeal to large swaths of the
country, not just small voting
blocs. If Israel is to eliminate its
political dysfunction and elect
working governments, elec-
toral reform is sorely needed.

In comparison to other
parliamentary democracies,
Israeli politics is tremendously
volatile. The Jewish State has
endured more than 30 coali-
tion governments since 1948,
many of which united ideo-
logically opposed factions. The
House of Commons, in con-
trast, has seen only a handful
of coalitions throughout the
16 FEBRUARY 14, 2019
United Kingdom’s long history.

Likud, currently the most rep-
resented party in the Knesset, has
just 30 seats. To form the cur-
rent government, Netanyahu
has culled a razor-thin 61-seat
majority that includes centrist,
right-wing, National Religious,
Ashkenazi Haredi and Sephardic
Haredi parties in addition to
his secular conservative Likud.

Netanyahu’s government has seen
vicious infighting on everything
from the ceasefire with Hamas,
which compelled the hawkish
Avigdor Liberman to remove his
Jewish Home party from the coa-
lition, to Haredi conscription.

Under the current system,
small parties can make the
survival of a ruling coalition
conditional on its promotion
of niche interests that detract
from the greater national
agenda. It is almost impos-
sible to govern effectively in
arrangements like this.

Electoral reform has enjoyed
popular backing in the past.

In 2014, the Knesset raised
the minimum threshold from
2 percent to 3.25 percent. Prior
to 1992, it was only 1 percent.

Though detractors claimed that
the increase targeted Arab and
Haredi blocs, they were incorrect
in arguing that the change imper-
iled representative democracy.

Many parliaments in Europe
have thresholds, and few would
claim these countries are undem-
ocratic. Israel’s low threshold may
have functioned well in the coun-
try’s nascent years, but it has long
outlasted its expiration date.

There is widespread agree-
ment that reform is necessary,
yet change does not transpire.

Part of the problem is that any
revision to Israel’s Basic Laws,
the country’s effective consti-
tution, requires a supermajor-
ity vote in the Knesset. The
prospect of increasing the elec-
toral threshold and potentially
liming their power is a tough
sell for smaller parties.

Despite brushback from some
corners, MKs should once again
raise the threshold in the interest
of a functional state as they did
five years ago. A higher threshold
would strengthen big-tent par-
ties, reduce political fragmenta-
tion and deliver more effective
governments. However, recent
reports suggest the opposite may
occur — the government is con-
sidering lowering the threshold
to ensure the election of MKs
from small right-wing parties. So
much for a way forward.

Another route of reform is
to implement a district-based
system. Israel has no elec-
toral districts, meaning voters
select parties based on national
considerations. The Israeli system is unlike
that of the United Kingdom,
for instance, where candi-
dates run in specific districts
and are directly accountable
to the constituents they rep-
resent. Advocates say that
fixed-boundary constituencies
would reduce the influence of
the party establishment while
favoring greater local repre-
sentation. Right now, voters in
Herzliya receive the same bal-
lots as those in Mea Shearim.

A district-based system would
probably bolster parties that
have broad appeal.

It’s true that raising the elec-
toral threshold or moving to
a constituency system would
curb the power of certain blocs.

Yet the status quo in Israeli pol-
itics is untenable. Demographic
changes will further widen
Israel’s social cleavages and
produce an even more divided
legislative body. Israel’s polit-
ical dysfunction is well-docu-
mented, and its electoral system
is the root cause. Coalition gov-
ernments are inherently bad,
but in Israel’s case they’re unsta-
ble to an unacceptable degree.

No matter what happens
on April 9, we can expect a
fractured vote. It’s clear that
MKs should come together to
reform an outdated electoral
system. l
Daniel J. Samet is a foreign affairs
researcher in Washington, D.C.

JEWISH EXPONENT
Continued from Page 14
slaughter Jews and Israelis. It
deserves to be held accountable
for those killed by these mur-
derers. Yet it’s clever enough
to pose as an intermediary
between Hamas and Israel
through which its funding can
be falsely represented as a ges-
ture towards peace.

Qatar is also deeply involved
with the Islamist government
of Turkey and that of Iran.

Indeed, it has served as Iran’s
agent in the Arabian Peninsula
— something that has led other
nations there to seek to iso-
late it. And it has been a vital
source of foreign currency to
Tehran as the Trump admin-
istration has sought to tighten
the screws on a dangerous
regime that is determined to
achieve regional hegemony and
inch its way towards acquiring
nuclear weapons.

But unlike Iran, which is
still viewed with distaste
even by many who favored
President Barack Obama’s pol-
icy of appeasement, Qatar has
acquired a misleading image as
a force for modernity.

Qatar controls a global
media empire in the form of
the Al Jazeera network (and
other efforts to influence the
press, such as helping to fund
Khashoggi’s work), which
operates not so much as a news
source, but as a powerful agent
of influence that undermines
efforts to shine a spotlight on
the way it supports radical
Islam and terror.

The really difficult aspect of
dealing with Qatar is that it is
so adept at playing a double
game with the United States.

While serving as a regional
clearinghouse for radicalism
and funding terror, it also hosts
a U.S. airbase. Yet rather than
this being a source of U.S. lever-
age over Qatar, it has become
an argument for ignoring the
regime’s flaws and crimes.

As former U.S. intelligence
expert and current Hudson
Institute analyst Michael
Pregent noted, the Qatari capi-
tal of Doha is the moral equiv-
alent of the bar in the original
Star Wars movie, where ter-
rorists and bad guys of every
variety gather with impunity
even though American forces
are stationed nearby.

America needs to start try-
ing to hold Qatar accountable
for its bad behavior and make
it clear that it will lose the U.S.

base if it doesn’t do so. After
all, there is plenty of flat land
in the Middle East from which
planes can take off and land.

Even worse, as long as so
many Americans allow them-
selves to have their heads turned
by Qatari agents of influence —
a term that includes friendly
media, paid lobbyists and use-
ful idiots who were impressed
by the free trips to the emirate
that they received — nothing
will change. l
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief
of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate.

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