Israeli politics reached a new level of absurdity this week when the Knesset was asked to vote on the renewal of the Emergency Regulations for the Occupied Territories. Far-left members of Meretz, who have fought for years to bring the occupation to an end, voted in favor of legitimizing it for at least another five years, while the extreme right and religious parties, who refuse even to talk about settlements or settlers, and who consider the West Bank as Israel, voted against the bill, in effect, grinding Israeli activity to a halt from July first. (Except for military activity of course because that is what an occupying power does).
The Arab coalition partners were severely scolded for not voting in favor of the Law, and blamed for the problems the government has, because they do not automatically support everything the coalition does or decides, but how can you expect from an Arab Israeli, to vote in favor of continuing the legalization of the occupation and repression of almost three million Palestinians? Coalition unity is important and the continued existence of the Bennett government is crucial for the recovery of Israeli politics and the trust of Israelis in their politicians, but there are limits to such unity.
And, while maybe a “yes” vote of the Arab coalition partners would have gone a long way in the passing of this law, the main reason it failed is not three or four Arab Knesset members, but 40-50 Jewish parliamentarians who decided (on command from their leader, Binyamin Netanyahu) to vote “Nay” to any bill introduced by the government or the coalition partners, no matter the Israeli, Jewish or Zionist importance of the bill.
Knesset members are voted into the parliament through the candidate lists of their party and in general, the fact that any of them is chosen to sit in the Knesset does not indicate anything about his/her popularity under the Israeli population or how much he/she indeed represents specific sections of the Israeli population. But it is obvious that a party like Meretz brought in Arab candidates to increase its appeal to the Arab population. And this appeal, (if it exists) will be severely damaged by a vote for this law, by such an Arab party member.
To obtain a better view of the personal appeal of Knesset candidates it may be considered to introduce a system of preferential voting, whereby a candidate who receives specifically a threshold of votes, is automatically chosen, no matter the position he occupies on his party’s list. For this to be possible all that is needed is to enable voters to see all of the candidate names on the ballot and allow them to choose a specific candidate, not a party.
While such a system would shed some light on which candidates are known and wanted by the public and which are wanted by their party leadership only, it will not solve the political impasse the Israeli parliamentary system has fallen into. The opposition in the Israeli parliament has made it their main goal to bring their leader back into power, no matter what. Their behavior has no longer any connection to public service, parliamentary responsibility, or maybe even to human decency. It serves the interests of one man, and of one man only. And while every now and then, voices are heard, especially from the side of the Orthodox parties, to take back their independence, the vote of this week, affecting a good part of their constituency, shows that Netanyahu’s iron fist is still in control.
How long will the opposition be able to continue to do damage to their ideals, to their voters, to themselves, before the Israeli public will step in and call a halt to the deterioration of parliamentarian and democratic principles and values? It is hard to say, but opinion polls (which need to be taken with a grain of salt to be sure) indicate that the voters still have not thrown off the chains their dictator put on them and continue to support him.
But as long as the Bennett government holds out, there is hope, or so they say………….
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