15 thoughts on “Knesset Plans to Raise Election Threshhold, Oust Palestinian Parties – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. I also question whether boycotting elections isn’t a better way, particularly to show the world that Israeli democracy is a farce.
    As far as uniting the smaller parties, it’s already the case: Ta’al-Ra’am is a coalition of two different parties: Ta’al which is more or less Ahmad Tibi on his own and Ra’am which is a moderate Islamic party lead by Ibrahim Sarsur. Raising the threshold is maybe not a bad thing after all: the smaller Palestinian parties would be obliged to form a larger coalition, and it could maybe encourage more people to vote. If there were one big Palestiinian party (reflecting different directions and ideologies) with 10-15% of the seats in the Knesset, the marginalization would be clearer.
    I also think United Torah Judaism is a coalition of at least two smaller parties.

  2. DY – surely boycotting democratic elections would not show anyone any farces, but just show up the fact that even when given the opportunity for democracy Palestinian Israelis reject it.

    The only real way for change is by getting everyone to vote, thus getting about 20 seats, and then playing democracy as an essential partner to a coalition or a fighting opposition.(like the hareidim and National religious did for years)

    Alternatively, they could try the “Feiglin method” of infiltrating an existing party democratically, like Avoda

    If they would join together as one party no one could prevent tham from sitting on the sensitive security or foreign affairs committees – the system at present always demands a minimum number of seats to be eligable which is always one more than the largest Arab party.With 20 seats they’d be the second largest party.

    As Abba Eban famously said, the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity…

    1. Abba Eban was the Hasbarista-in-chief who told the UN that the State of Israel would do anything to implement the resolution 194 – a condition for Israel’s admission to the UN – back in May 1949, right ? Well, to paraphrase him “Israel never misses an opportunity to lie to the whole world, and get away with it”.

      I don’t consider the elections in Israel to be democratic because I don’t consider Israel a democracy: Palestinians are only allowed to vote because their numbers prevent them from any influence. The fact that even ‘centrist’ (in an Israeli perspective) parties prefer to made coalitions with Shas or United Torah Judaism rather than with Balad is proof enough for me.
      Oren Yiftachel as well as many other intellectuals call Israel an ethnocracy, it fits fine. Even Ashkenazicracy… Haneen Zoabi is coming to Paris in couple of weeks, I’ll ask her what she thinks of Israeli democracy.

  3. Good. There is no room for traitors in the Israeli government. And these Arab MKs are bad for the Arabs too; their inflammatory rhetoric and treasonous actions raise tensions between Jews and Arabs. And the state should not be paying the salaries of traitors.

    Good riddance to Tubby Tibi and Finger-Wagging Zoabi.

  4. Historically, the threshold has been raised from its original 0% to its current 2% while the number of parties in the Knesset remained constant. There is also a natural threshold of about 0.8%, as there are exactly 120 MKs and you can’t split a seat.

    Also, Yesh Atid’s platform calls for a threshold of 6%.

    I have to say, that as an Israeli who does think Israel is a democracy, I don’t like this one bit. I also don’t see how the 3 proposed changes to the system of Government[1] actually help with anything beside lead us down the slippery slope. Raising the election threshold will force the smaller parties to unite or throw in the towel, but ultimately won’t change the power balance much. For example, during the last election, assuming that Arab parties were to unite (pretty safe assumption?), Kadima and Hadash would have been below the 4% threshold. That’s 6 seats, to be split evenly between the government and the opposition – not a major difference.
    Motions of no confidence are basically a symbolic gesture and no recent ones have passed anyway. And the selection of the PM by the president is a pretty minor thing, and in the last few elections the PM selected by the president was able to form a government.
    So what’s the point of these changes?

    [1] 1. Raising the election threshold, 2. Motions of no confidence require 70 MKs, and 3. The PM is the head of the party with the most votes

  5. WRONG
    that header is a bad spin on a bad knesset distribution
    To simply say this law is created to oust ONLY THE ARABS is complete fallacy, it’s a spin of the worst kind
    Most Israeli coalitions are needled with the help of tiny parties who hold the keys of the money
    There are myriads of tiny parties BOTH arabs AND jewish that have no reason of blackmailing the larger parties in order to reach a stable 62 or 63 coalitions members.
    Actually the base level shouldn’t be ONLY 4%, IT SHOULD BE CLOSE TO 6% AS IN MOST COUNTRIES. Now that would allow solid majorities that can govern as it should
    That the arabs parties are fractioned close to the atomic level is only the fault and ONLY the fault of the arabs.
    IF THE ARABS CAN’T GET THEMSELVES TO VOTE OR TO CREATE LESS TEMPERAMENTAL PARTIES, perhaps then they could create solid parties that deserve to represent them in the Knesset. FURTHER AS IS THE US THE ARABS should start GET TO VOTE programs in order to raise the low voting level AGAIN THIS BEHOOVES THE ARABS TO DO
    To simply blame the majority to try to find a proper way to govern is not new, TIME AND AGAIN THIS LAW WAS SHUT DOWN BY NONE OTHER THAN THE MINOR SHAS brothers. this same law was ALWAYS killed by the haredis in previous coalitions. Why would haredis vote against this law, are they arab lovers, i don’t think so, they did it in order to fraction the knesset in order to be able to be king makers AND THAT’S THE WHOLE TRUTH
    Please don’t blame the new comers as being anti arabs – it’s truly beneath this blog to assume that

    1. it’s a spin of the worst kind

      Stop with the histrionics, why don’t you. I made clear in the post, which you probably didn’t bother to read, who precisely would be affected & I noted that Kadima would be included. But of course the vast majority of parties are either Palestinian or combined Palestinian and Jewish (Hadash). BTW, even Meretz in past elections might’ve fallen shy of the threshold.

      As for your argument that the thresh hold should be 6%, only an Israeli Jew could say that because his representation wouldn’t be affected. He’d have parties to vote for. Only Israeli Palestinians wouldn’t. Regarding the threshold of other countries, other countries are not Israel. Germany does not have the ethnic composition, nor the democratic threats that Israel faces. With stability & ethnic integration a country may afford to have different rules. Given the dysfunction of virtually everything about Israeli politics and ethnic relations, raising the threshold is another nail in the coffin of Israeli democracy. But you wouldn’t recognize that because all you want is “Jewish democracy.”

      I do love your typical blaming of the victim for his troubles when it is you, the Israeli Jew, who is the real cause. Your blindness to this is so goddman typical.

      There is no reason for Israeli Palestinians to vote in Israel if there’s nothing to vote for & they gain little or nothing by it. It is YOUR responsible as the one holding the reins of power to share it with them if you want them to participate. If you don’t, then as far as I’m concerned you can take your so-called democracy and so-called free and fair elections and shove ’em.

      1. Richard it is beneath you to demean my presentation of the truth the way i see it and live it from inside.
        Born in Egypt and lived the 56 war only to move to Montevideo to live the 68 Tupamaros revolution and to move to Montreal to live the 72 mini revolution, I have seen and lived enough to see that this law has been pushed time and again and ONLY parties that TRULY benefited were the Haredis, time and again they were the king makers in order to keep their bastions MIN OF INTERIOR (פניםdefines who’s a jew) CONSTRUCTION (building and subsidizing apt EXCLUSIVELY for haredis). These minor parties were the ONLY ones that benefited from the low threshold.
        You may see it at discriminating against the arabs, ME AS A SECULAR I see it as kicking minor haredis parties that allowed them to live in at the cost of the rest of us
        Big words to stomp me are demeaning and make me wonder if you without realizing it have somehow crossed some invisible line that doesn’t allow you to see the day to day damage that these tiny haredis parties have caused to the WHOLE ISRAEL ECONOMY AND WAY OF LIE. I do feel the arabs should have a better way to warrant them representation, no questions about that at all. unfortunately in this case this particular law shuts down both the good representation (arabs) and the bad/ugly representations (minor rabbis getting in coalitions just to rub their agendas in our face)
        Just in that vein are the rabbis fatwas not to pump water from the Galilee JUST BECAUSE THERE IS A “CHANCE’ of fermentation. The cost to the rest of us in using more expensive water is enormous and yet no one dares to stand up and say no unless you can prove it factually AND physically. This is extortion without representation

        1. It’s simply not true to say Haredi parties are the “only ones who benefited from the low threshold” when I’ve specifically listed four other non-Haredi parties who would be disenfranchised by raising the threshold. I also reject the notion of 2% as a “low threshold.” In fact, it’s the normal threshold that’s been in place in Israel for decades, perhaps going back to 1948 (though I’m not certain of this).

          I have no interest in restricting debate to the Haredi parties. They’re an easy target since almost everyone aside from the Orthodox themselves detest them. The issue here isn’t Haredim vs everyone else. The real issue is Israeli Jewish ultranationalism vs. the Israeli Jewish & Palestinian left.

  6. Sorry I don’t see it that way,
    In view of the fact that there is no Israeli individual to rally a great majority to his cause, the country has become fractionated beyond recognition, therefore the task of creating a “stable” coalition is harder by the election.
    This coalition is nothing but the last example. it took 60 days of give and take to generate something, and this with ONLY 3 major parties. the previous times it was close to 6 or 7 different parties each with it’s own agenda.
    As commoners we can only see the negative results in laws that go beyond fascism, why because minor parties were king makers and their agenda was more destructive than the next party. It was utterly disgusting to see the plethora of ministers, subs, sub subs and what not all on the public trough, nearly each individual that was part of the previous coalition had a post
    it would have happened again if either lapid or benett would have stayed out, it would have taken no less than 10 yes count them 10 parties to get to the 61 or 62 threshold. now does that sound like a government that wants to govern or a bunch of people feeding at the trough and all serving it’s own little group.
    our life is nothing but miserable on account of the 2 knesset seats parties
    i hate shutting down minorities groups but sometime the good of the most has to prevail, no in this utterly racist country, but then the racism was distated from the coalitions in charge. had there been stronger groups they would have provided counter weights to some of the extremists laws that were hatched in an utterly fasicist knesset.
    10 parties to make a coalition, nothing but a sectarian government, not a heck of a lot better than the mullahs of iran, but then the way we’re going there’s won’t be much of a difference in short term
    what scares me the most is the rapid way we’re heading into apartheid, all with the full agreement of just about every single member of the knesset with the exception of a handful, sad to see israel dismembered the way south africa but then the majority is tone deaf by now with the “security foremost” banner

  7. Richard, I don’t buy your narrative of big parties conspiring to gang up on Arab/Palestinian and other small parties. You got it almost right here: “The small parties … can fold their mission into a larger party. … But they would do so at the price of compromising the political diversity they currently express through the multiplicity of parties.” Israel needs more parties (not just Palestinian ones) to compromise ideological purity for the sake of governance. Nobody should be disenfranchised. Small parties should become factions within larger parties, which will force large parties to have broader platforms.

  8. [Such comments will never be published here. You’ve been warned about this. Either shape up and publish comments that respect the comment rules or go away.]

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