Don't Fix What Ain't Broken: The Israeli Electoral System "As Is" Helps - Not Hinders - Peace

Every time Israelis go to polls, and this time is no exception, the local political system falls into "goalitzia", a word coined by Yitzhak Rabin from "goal", or disgust, and "coalitzia", or coalition. While voters may feel frustrated, since they can never be quite sure who the winner is, even weeks after the election's results have been made public, the "international community" usually worries about how the next government will get involved in the "peace process" it has been busy planning for the region.

And when, at last, the new coalition is formed, commentators usually lament its lack of coherence and the fact that one or two small parties have managed to be part of it and push their own particular agenda, which will weaken the cabinet. The "international community" then complains that some small political actors are in a position to block the negotiations, while the cabinet itself risks being overthrown every time a more or less sensitive text is discussed at the Knesset.

This state of things mainly results from proportional representation, which indeed makes small parties disproportionately powerful. The proportional system was adopted during the war of independence, at a time when it was hardly conceivable to proceed otherwise. But then the Israelis failed to change it in favor of a more efficient voting system, so, here we are now, with a proportional system that has made Israel ungovernable while blocking the peace process for years and making the whole region unstable.

And this is all false.

To start with, Israeli politicians are quite disciplined when it comes to national security, and the peace process is part of it. If the Israeli political parties disagree over the negotiations with the Palestinians, which are certainly a matter of national security, there usually are some reasons for it. When a "hawkish" coalition succeeds or is succeeded by a "dovish" coalition, there is usually some security reasons for it. Israel's security policy does not get reversed over a disagreement on unimportant issues. The "peace process" has been a huge campaigning theme since the beginning, and the very notions of "left" and "right", in Israeli politics, are determined by matters of security rather than economy. War and peace are not discussed lightly, nor do they depend on obscure and sordid political dealings.

Indeed, the "goalitzia" process may seem strange, with politicians giving up on various parts of their platforms while agreeing to measures their electors are clearly opposed to, but this is largely because it is a public process, with clear procedures and strict deadlines, which results in public agreements between the parties. In other words, the process of forming a cabinet coalition is an open, transparent one. It may make Israeli politicians look bad from time to time, but this is how politics works in most of the democratic world, except that the public is usually not that well informed. What would the French think of their leaders if they actually could hear them negotiating over the next government? The Israeli experience provides some answers.

Now, does that make the Israeli system perfect? No, and neither are institutional systems supposed to be so. When a government takes a bad measure or implements a good policy, no one can tell if that is because of its system, its leaders or just luck. What is possible is to evaluate the long-term record of an institutional system. An institutional system must be designed to keep the government stable while keeping it from abusing its power and at the same time allowing it to keep the country safe from domestic troubles and external threats. And of course, the institutional system must not prevent society from pursuing its aims, be it economic development or individual pursuit of happiness.

To judge from these three criterias, the Israeli system's record is nothing short of remarkable. As coalitions and cabinets succeeded one another, Israel has never experienced any serious threat to its political stability. Some cabinets resigned over scandals, but they were replaced in accordance with the normal procedures, as should happen in a stable democracy. No episode of Israeli political history presents the slightest resemblance to a coup d'etat.

Surely the permanent security threat faced by Israeli society has helped keep Israeli society together, but precisely, the state of emergency being more or less permanent, it has never justified giving any extraordinary powers to the government. Elections have been going on normally, whatever the security situation, and civil liberties have never stopped to be guaranteed by the Israeli Supreme Court. The rule of law has prevailed permanently.

Finally, there is no need to mention that the wars have all been won, except for limited, external operations which ended up with uncertain results, without any catastrophic consequences. Not only the IDF has proved resilient, adaptative and able to learn from its mistakes; but the Israeli population has been willing to keep a long and demanding system of conscription, something few democratic countries could impose on their citizenry.

As for the general development of the country, the record is no less obvious. With a tenfold population expansion, Israel has still managed to turn itself from a rural, underdeveloped, economy to the Mediterranean Silicon Valley that it is today. Immigration to Israel may have decreased, mainly because large parts of the populations from the diaspora have already immigrated, but immigration flux is still positive, and were it not for the necessity to keep the Jewish character of the state, Israel would probably attract a lot more people.

It seems very unlikely that any of this could have been achieved despite a dysfunctional and paralyzing political system, such as the one described by pessimistic commentators every time a new coalition is painfully formed. Perhaps it would be wiser to judge a political system not by the mistakes being made on a day-to-day basis by successive governments, but by the longer term achievements performed by the country's society while the government merely makes them possible. By such a standard, the Israeli success story should make people think twice before proposing any important constitutional change.