Israelis will vote for a yet another new government in February, all but killing off the latest US-sponsored peace process with the Palestinians and raising questions about the viability of the political system. Israel's average government lasts less than two years, one of the briefest terms in the world. Parliament's own Web site says: “Unlike most of the Western parliamentary democracies, the system in Israel is followed in an extreme manner.” A voting system that turns several small, single-issue parties into kingmakers who can hold prime ministers hostage to entrenched interests is blamed by some for slowing domestic policy reforms – and also for playing a role in hampering efforts to end 60 years of conflict with Arab neighbours. After Prime Minister Ehud Olmert resigned over a corruption scandal, his successor as party leader, Tzipi Livni, tried to form a new cabinet. She failed when Shas, a Jewish religious party that is a perennial fixture in coalitions, not only demanded an increase in subsidies to the religious Sephardic community but refused to let her negotiate giving parts of occupied Jerusalem to a Palestinian state. “The Israeli political system is utterly incapable of reaching a settlement with the Palestinians,” said former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, a left-winger who now works for an organisation that seeks to resolve conflicts. Quick fixes, however, are not on the horizon. “The political system is out-dated,” said Gerald Steinberg, head of the political science department at Israel's Bar Ilan University. But, he warned, there was little sign of consensus to change it as parties representing Israel's patchwork of ethnic and religious communities clung to their own influence. “The complex society is reflected in divisive politics, and the smaller parties will not want to give up their power,” Steinberg said. “Only when there is a stable political leadership, the system will be re-examined.” Barring the extremely unlikely, there will be an election on Feb. 10, more than a year ahead of a four-yearly schedule. Olmert remains as caretaker, but without a mandate to commit to any significant agreements, peace talks are on hold. Polls this week show Foreign Minister Livni's centrist Kadima party neck-and-neck with the right-wing Likud of Benjamin Netanyahu, with the Labour party of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the main partner in Olmert's coalition, trailing in third place. The polls also show that, again, the “winning” party is unlikely to secure more than a quarter of the Knesset's 120 seats, giving it first refusal on choosing the prime minister but leaving him or her beholden to numerous coalition allies. Yossi Shain, an Israeli political scientist at Georgetown University, said the electoral system put heavy curbs on Israeli leaders' freedom to follow their own agenda once in power. “The system limits them. As long as there is no dominant party, everything is circumscribed to their coalition partners.” A doubling of the minimum share of the vote required to take a seat – to two percent – at the 2006 election did little to curb fragmentation. Twelve groups sit in today's parliament. “The proportional representation with a low threshold allows small parties to enter and become power brokers,” Shain said. Though only 20 percent of Israelis are Orthodox Jews, 26 of the past 31 governments have included religious parties like Shas, whose 12 seats gave it three cabinet posts under Olmert. Premiers face permanent threats of defection. This year, Olmert was weakened when a party representing Russian-speaking immigrants walked out in protest at his renewing peace talks. Among those to have sounded the alarm lately over the link between Israel's electoral system and failed peacemaking is The Economist newspaper, which called in a special edition devoted to Israel's 60th anniversary in May for radical change. “For the sake of its security and domestic well-being, it now needs a system that makes politicians answerable to voters, not to other politicians,” the paper wrote, suggesting a higher threshold to win seats, constituency voting and other measures that it argued would weaken uncompromising minority parties. But many Israelis are proud of their system. The Knesset website declares that the model is “based on the zeal with which various political parties, where ideology and personalities play a major role, fight to preserve their independence”. Curbing minority parties might risk such groups expressing grievances in other, violent, ways, some argue. And, despite the apparent unruliness of the parliamentary system, Israel did sign peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and Ariel Sharon pulled troops out of Gaza in 2005 in the face of bitter opposition from many quarters. The failures of peacemaking, said an Israeli official long involved in such talks, are not failures of the party system but a matter of circumstance, due a lack of will and leadership. “It is not the system, but a lack of determination and vision,” he said. “This was something we did see with Sharon, who was able to force the system to go along with him.” – Reuters __
