I won -- No, I won -- (Israel elections)
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I hear Al Gore is parachuting in with his legal team...
viverravid
New Blood
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I wanted to start a thread asking the Israelis who post here about this party.
I've read lots of contradictory coverage... most has portrayed them as racist, but there were some encouraging signs.
For example, the current article in Slate (sorry, can't post links yet) suggests that in a way Yisrael Beiteynu is an encouraging new phenomenon - a far-right party with no "Eretz Israel" ambitions, and supportive of the idea of a Palestinian state.
Elsewhere (on ynet I think) I read that they are proposing exchanging Arab-majority parts of Israel for Jewish-majority parts of the West Bank (the most densely settled areas). In the current situation this would probably be really bad for the Israeli Arabs as they're likely much better off as Israeli citizens, but as part of a 2 state settlement with a viable Palestine, it could be good.
(Personally I don't think Arab-majority areas should ever have been part of Israel in the first place)
geni
Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
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I hear Al Gore is parachuting in with his legal team...
Not a legal issues but a collition building issue.
Puppycow
Penultimate Amazing
When the "most successful" party can only garner 23% of the seats in parliament, it seems clear that Israel is a bit short of a consensus on what they want to do.
I have heard many reports warning of the rise of Yisrael Beitenu, but they won only 12% of the seats. In the US that would have put them in the George Wallace/Ross Perot territory: irrelevant once the election was over. In Israel that will put them in the position to dictate policy out of proportion to their support.
I suppose that puts Avigdor Lieberman in a similar position to Joe Lieberman in the US. All part of the worldwide Jewish conspiracytm, I suppose.
I have heard many reports warning of the rise of Yisrael Beitenu, but they won only 12% of the seats. In the US that would have put them in the George Wallace/Ross Perot territory: irrelevant once the election was over. In Israel that will put them in the position to dictate policy out of proportion to their support.
I suppose that puts Avigdor Lieberman in a similar position to Joe Lieberman in the US. All part of the worldwide Jewish conspiracytm, I suppose.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
Israel and Italy seem to be in competition as an example why I don't want a pure parliamentary system in the US.
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
The problem is not parliamentary system, it's a system that lets too many small groups get seats and blackmail the larger groups. Australia has a parliamentary system with a different electoral system in the lower house, and a similar one in the upper house. When government wins in the lower house, it can usually govern without having to worry about such knife edge results, and blackmail from smaller groups. In the upper house, you do get smaller groups blackmailing the larger groups. Government is much more stable and capable of reaching and enacting decisions on significant matters, but often has to deal with the upper house doing it's best to spoil those decisions. Not ideal, but much more practical than the Israeli situation.
The Fool
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They propose stripping some citizens of thier citizenship and throwing them out of Israel.....based on thier race. My opinion is that they are facist scum.
geni
Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
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US system wouldn't on paper prevent this (in practice cost of campaining and the extent the major parties have become part of the electrol system probably does).
Any system that allows minoritory parties to exist (and US style first past the post certianly does) can hit issues.
For example lets suppose in the US a sucessfull minority party formed. Call it the monster raving loony party. It racks up about 10% of the seats in congress. A rather bitter and close elections restults in the dems and republicans holding 45% each. The repubican president proposes a various budgets but the dems reject all of them. The monster raving loony party refuses to support the budget without consensions (a bouncy castle every mile along the interstate highway system). They take the same aproach with any dem proposed budget. The republicans now have the choice of allowing the goverment to run out of money or building a lot of bouncy castles. In practice they are going to go for the buillding a lot of bouncy castles. All quite legit under the US system.
gumboot
lorcutus.tolere
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Israel uses a party-list proportional electoral system, unlike the USA which uses a plurality voting system (first past the post). It's very difficult for a single party in a party-list proportional system to win a clear majority; normally they have to form coalitions. This method was intentionally developed for Germany after WW2 to prevent a repeat of the rise of Nazism.
Of course getting a clear majority is even more difficult in a multi-party system, as compared to the USA which is, in effect, a two-party system. Multi party system using proportional representation offer the benefit of producing a government that more accurately reflects the will of the people. It's quite common throughout the world, and the dilemma of not knowing who has won is equally routine. I think after our previous election (2005) we had to wait something like six or eight weeks before we knew who our government was.
geni
Anti-homeopathy illuminati member
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Indeed. I've seen it claimed that the Dutch hold the record at 208 days in 1977. Otherwise the recent Belgian performace was pretty impressive.
ddt
Mafia Penguin
Yes, the Dutch govt. formation of 1977 was a record one. It was a combination of a lot of bad conditions. In 1973, Labour had managed to play the 3 Christian-democrat parties against each other and had formed a govt. with 2 of them (they had always been in govt. with the 3 of them). In 1975, the three CD parties merged into the current CDA. The CDA leader torpedoed the govt. two months before the scheduled elections on a principal socialist issue. Then, Labour won the 1977 elections with 10 seats more. There was a lot of bad blood between the respective leaders. Labour wanted a minister more in the govt for that. After 6 months of fruitless negotiations, the CDA formed a govt. with the right-wing VVD in 2 weeks (with a 77 out of 150 seats majority).
Belgium has the problem that it has two of each: a Flemish socialist party and a Walloon socialist party; a Flemish christian-democrat party and a Walloon christian-democrat party. You get the picture. They have identical socio-economic outlooks, but very different outlooks on the federalization issues.
@gumboot: the current German electoral system doesn't differ very much in the results with the Weimar system - they only added a 5% threshold to lock out small parties. But the small parties weren't the issue with Weimar: the problem there was that there was no majority of parties in support of the democratic system. In the end, NSDAP and KPD together had a majority and government only functioned by presidential decree.
Israel certainly has a fragmented political landscape at the moment. Hasn't always been the case: once, Labour even had a majority on its own. Now they'll need at least 3 parties to form a majority, and probably it will be a couple more. The voters are very unloyal to the parties - and so are the politicians, for that matter. I wouldn't hold that against the proportional system in general, though - in most countries, most of the times, it works just fine.
Doctor Evil
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A nice summary of the election results by Ami Isseroff.
On who won:
On who won:
And the big losers:
I found myself agreeing with all his major points. If I could write that well, (and would not be lazy,) my summary of the election results would be similar. In any case, it is always interesting to read Isseroff's posts, so go and read the whole thing.
Hutch
A broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barret
Last time they tried that, they lost 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel. Don't think they have too many left to go around....
Probably going to be Benji again. Interesting to see what his releationship with Obama will be like....
Oliver
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I hear Al Gore is parachuting in with his legal team...
I hear Gore is parachuting into Israel to share his Nobel Peace Prize. He just couldn't decide if he should pass it to Livni or Mashal yet.
Now that the election results are official, Gore tends to give it to Mashal.