Monday 29th January 2007, 4 years since my Mother died.I went to Holon cemetery, Above Picture Recent.
Continue to read "Salonica City of Ghosts" by Mark Mazower.
Bought Hebrew second hand book "O Jerusalem".
Monday, January 29, 2007
My Mum and Dad
Monday 29th January 2007, 4 years since my Mother died.I went to Holon cemetery, Above Picture Recent.
Continue to read "Salonica City of Ghosts" by Mark Mazower.
Bought Hebrew second hand book "O Jerusalem".
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Salonica City of Ghosts, Mark Mazower
I bought today "Salonica City of Ghosts"- Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950
another Excellant History book by Mark Mazower.
My Father was born there 1912 and My Mothers Parents were from Salonica.
In 1948 My Mother and Father Married in Salonica Greece.
Saw the book last week and it added to my uneasy feeling this week.
What about Darfur?! Sign this interesting Petition.
http://www.petitiononline.com/msaimva2/petition.html
AG decides to charge President Katsav with rape
| AG decides to charge President Katsav with rape |
 |
|
| Lawyer: Katsav to fulfill promise, suspend himself | |
| Katsav to announce plans in press conference Wed.; promised High Court to take leave if brought to trial. 19:38 | |
| |
| Katsav also faces charges of sexual harassment and fraud | |
| President also faces charges of breach of trust, can present case at hearing; final indictment draft in 3 months. 19:34 | |
| |
| MKs on left, right urge Katsav to quit after indictment decision | |
| MK Orlev: This is a sad day for the state and its citizens; Channel 10: Katsav won't resign Tuesday. 18:12 | |
Friday, January 19, 2007
Nasrallah's Bullshit!, My Linux
At last I improved Performance on Zis Oldie Computer by Reducing the Screen Resolution that was eating up the small Memory, Linux Here!
Nasrallah's Bullshit! He brought all the desruction to Lebanon and he did not win.
This is dangerous as it can lead to Miscalculation and more Violence and Destruction.
Hezbollah head hails resignation, from BBC
Hezbollah head Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has welcomed the resignation of Israeli army chief Lt-Gen Dan Halutz in the wake of the two sides' summer conflict. Nasrallah's Bullshit! He brought all the desruction to Lebanon and he did not win.
This is dangerous as it can lead to Miscalculation and more Violence and Destruction.
Hezbollah head hails resignation, from BBC
Sheikh Nasrallah told his movement's al-Manar TV in Lebanon: "Any of them that don't resign will be forced out."
Gen Halutz said he was taking responsibility for the failures of the Israeli military campaign.
Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers in July, and killing of eight others, sparked 34 days of fighting.
A UN-brokered truce ended the conflict, in which more than 1,200 people died.
Long shadow
Sheikh Nasrallah said of the resignation: "When I heard the news, I was happy. Since the end of the war we had been expecting Halutz to resign and [Defence Minister Amir] Peretz and [Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert to follow him."
He added: "It's the first war that Israel has lost and in which it's failed to achieve its objectives."
BBC Arab world regional editor Karen O'Brien says although the conflict ended six months ago it still casts a long shadow over both Israeli and Lebanese internal politics.
The opposition in Lebanon, with Hezbollah at the forefront, has been carrying out daily protests against Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
It is demanding the formation of a new administration in which its allies have the power of veto.
Sheikh Nasrallah's address comes the week before international donors discuss whether to approve billions of dollars in aid for Lebanon.
Our correspondent says those donors will be looking to Lebanon's politicians from all parties for reassurance that political tensions will not derail their plans for Lebanon's reconstruction.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Too Much News. Halutz Resigns.
00:20 DAN HALUTZ ANNOUNCES HIS RESIGNATION AS IDF CHIEF OF STAFF (Haaretz)
00:20 Olmert expresses regret at Halutz resignation (Haaretz)
This and too much News, Haaretz on Syria:
00:20 Olmert expresses regret at Halutz resignation (Haaretz)
This and too much News, Haaretz on Syria:
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Rice: U.S. won't 'pull the plug' on Iraq
If only I pulled the PLUG on this Computer more often...
PS. Discovered Dry Bones Blog
Sam
http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com/
He Was a New American Immigrant, Oleh Chadash in 1973
I have seen him in Sheinkin a few times.
And met him at Halpers some Years ago.
Kirschen, Shabat Shalom!
Sam
PS. Discovered Dry Bones Blog
Sam
http://drybonesblog.blogspot.com/
He Was a New American Immigrant, Oleh Chadash in 1973
I have seen him in Sheinkin a few times.
And met him at Halpers some Years ago.
Kirschen, Shabat Shalom!
Sam
Friday, January 12, 2007
News From Anat, And ze Loony zisstem in izrael
Spoke to Anat, she is taking a trip soon to India, Hope she enjoys it.
From Haaretz a month ago, The Izraeli Zizstem..:
Considering his deserved reputation as a master of the English language, Winston Churchill's much-quoted maxim on democracy is surprisingly inelegant. In a debate in the House of Commons in 1947, Churchill said: "... it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." But the saying, however clumsily phrased, is incontrovertible. The dustbin of history is crammed to overflowing with ephemerally successful attempts at alternative forms of government that have in the end proved disastrous. We only have to look at the calamitous totalitarian experiments of the 20th century to be reminded of what awaits those who depart from the democratic paradigm. Yet there has never been a time that Churchill's adage has been more sorely tested. As the United States attempts forcibly to foist the blessings of constitutional government on a hitherto undemocratic and demonstrably ungrateful Middle East, the newly enfranchised of Iraq and Palestine respond by disobligingly electing parties that vilify the system that gave them power.
Democracies come in all shapes and sizes and electoral systems vary radically among them. In its purest form, a democratic system should give equal weight to the vote of each elector. That is patently not the case in the United States and Great Britain. Their "winner takes all" system for the election of legislatures effectively disfranchises those who voted for a losing candidate in a particular district. But it ensures stable government.
If your idea of an ideal democratic electoral system is one that accurately reflects the percentage of votes cast for a party in an election, you should be looking for a country with a single-chamber legislature and a system of nationwide, single-constituency proportional representation. There is one such country - the country whose language gave the world the term tohu-bohu. In Israel, you get what you vote for. Proportional representation anywhere involves government by coalition; in a Jewish state it is a recipe for anarchy. In order to cobble together a government, a would-be prime minister must yield to the demands of diverse special-interest groups, who command much-needed votes in the Knesset, Israel's legislature. The process is ruinously expensive because each potential partner has demands, financial and legislative, favoring his own sector. The stranglehold of the religious parties over legislation has resulted in Israel - a country that, whatever its faults, has a Western-style, open society - having laws of personal status that would shame the Taliban.
Israeli elections are said to be dull. I am not sure that I share that view. For one thing the voter is faced with an embarrassment of choice. Earlier this year, over 30 parties presented lists of candidates for election to the Knesset. You could, for instance, choose to vote for such exotica as the Green Leaf party whose sole platform was the legalization of cannabis. This list received over 40,000 votes, 1.3 percent of the popular vote. With a little more luck it would have passed the 2-percent threshold and would have put into the Knesset three members who would have joined any coalition that permitted them to smoke pot.
Divorcees and dodderers
Frivolity on the part of voters is not confined to Israel but it is only under a system such as Israel's that it can actually make a difference. In Britain the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, founded by the wildly eccentric rock singer, the late Screaming Lord Sutch, has contested numerous constituencies over the years, but never got near to getting a candidate elected to Parliament. Yet, in a by-election in the constituency of Rotherham in 1994, the Screaming Lord succeeded in getting 4.2 percent of the vote. That percentage, translated into Israeli terms, would have earned the raving loonies six seats in the 120-member Knesset. Six seats! They would have been worth gold when the time came for negotiating the coalition. The party whose ideology is "Insanity, Satire, Pragmatism and Existentialism" could have demanded, as a condition for its joining the coalition, that the new government adopt the Loony manifesto demanding the abolition of income tax; the introduction of a 99p (make that agorot) coin to save on change; and the retraining as vicars (rabbis) of traffic police too stupid for normal police work.
Of course, you could add some really mad ideas that might catch on in Israel. This may sound farfetched but you could, for example, propose a law forbidding any man called Cohen from marrying a divorcee.
Getting the Loonies into the Knesset is something of a pipe dream. But, in 2006, something similar did happen to another single-issue party. A perennial no-hoper in Israeli elections was the Pensioners' Party. Its program was to improve the lot of senior citizens, an estimable enough cause, but, in the many previous elections in which it had run, the electorate had chosen to cast its vote for parties with less sectoral aims. But something happened in 2006. Against all expectations, the pensioners' list received almost 6 percent of the popular vote, bringing the party seven seats in the Knesset and taking a group of dazed dodderers to Jerusalem where they found themselves, thanks to the vagaries of the electoral system, wielding a power that they can never have dreamed of as they sat at home dozing in front of their television sets.
How did a party that had in every previous election had meager support, suddenly produce 185,000 votes? This was not a revolt of the aged. It was not that the elderly, however ill-used, had changed their party affiliations to vote en masse for their special interests. This was a vote for a lark by people who would otherwise not have voted at all. It was a classic instance of the social epidemic, a phenomenon analyzed in a much-discussed 2000 book, "The Tipping Point." According to its author, Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, there is a stage that an idea or trend crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like a brushwood fire. This is the tipping point and how it happens is the subject of the book. Here, the word got round that the cool thing to do was to vote for the pensioners. In a matter of days the tipping point was reached.
The beneficiaries of this epidemic, the Pensioners' Party, were not unworthy but the motives for voting for them were essentially irrational. The "connectors" and "mavens" who, according to Gladwell, produce social epidemics could equally have pushed the Raving Loonies or their local equivalents, the War Against the Banks list or the party for men's rights, over the tipping point. Israel's electoral system encourages this type of irresponsibility on the part of the voters.
Unhappy day
It is apparent to any reasonably objective observer that reform of Israel's electoral system is long overdue. The difficulty has been that the very interests whose baleful influence gives rise to the need for reform wield that same disproportionate influence to scupper reform. There has been no shortage of proposals for reform. Indeed, there have been as many such proposals as there are party lists in the elections. In the 1980s a movement for reform spearheaded by prominent law professors actually culminated in a new law: the direct election of the prime minister. Hard though it must have been to achieve, the reform - giving each voter two votes, one for a party list and one for a candidate for prime minister - resulted in even greater chaos than had prevailed hitherto. Fragmentation of government increased and the already outrageous bargaining power of splinter parties was enhanced. The whole sorry experiment was canceled after the elections of 2001 and the old system was restored. So much for law professors.
Electoral reform is once more in the air in Israel. One who has a proposal for reform is Avigdor Lieberman. The head of a party commanding a powerful 11 seats in the Knesset, he has recently joined the ruling coalition. A principal feature of his platform is the redrawing of Israel's boundaries so as to exclude, in favor of a future Palestinian state, areas of Israel that are chiefly populated by Arabs. He has also advocated the death penalty for Arab members of the Knesset that he regards as collaborationists. The fact that liberal-minded ministers find it possible - faute de mieux - to sit in the same government as Lieberman is itself the most eloquent criticism of the state to which Israel's electoral system has reduced us. Lieberman's own proposal for reform is for a "presidential" system. The strong man he has in mind to lead the country under this system is generally assumed to be the one whose face he sees in the bathroom mirror every morning.
It was an unhappy day for Israel when it adopted its unique, nation-wide electoral system. Ben-Gurion himself favored a two-party system with constituencies on the British model. Thanks to pusillanimity on the part of the major parties, this is not likely to happen soon. But one day something like it will have to happen if Israeli democracy is to survive.
From Haaretz a month ago, The Izraeli Zizstem..:
Last update - 07:52 08/12/2006
Sutch a loony system
By Michael Fox
Considering his deserved reputation as a master of the English language, Winston Churchill's much-quoted maxim on democracy is surprisingly inelegant. In a debate in the House of Commons in 1947, Churchill said: "... it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." But the saying, however clumsily phrased, is incontrovertible. The dustbin of history is crammed to overflowing with ephemerally successful attempts at alternative forms of government that have in the end proved disastrous. We only have to look at the calamitous totalitarian experiments of the 20th century to be reminded of what awaits those who depart from the democratic paradigm. Yet there has never been a time that Churchill's adage has been more sorely tested. As the United States attempts forcibly to foist the blessings of constitutional government on a hitherto undemocratic and demonstrably ungrateful Middle East, the newly enfranchised of Iraq and Palestine respond by disobligingly electing parties that vilify the system that gave them power.
Democracies come in all shapes and sizes and electoral systems vary radically among them. In its purest form, a democratic system should give equal weight to the vote of each elector. That is patently not the case in the United States and Great Britain. Their "winner takes all" system for the election of legislatures effectively disfranchises those who voted for a losing candidate in a particular district. But it ensures stable government.
If your idea of an ideal democratic electoral system is one that accurately reflects the percentage of votes cast for a party in an election, you should be looking for a country with a single-chamber legislature and a system of nationwide, single-constituency proportional representation. There is one such country - the country whose language gave the world the term tohu-bohu. In Israel, you get what you vote for. Proportional representation anywhere involves government by coalition; in a Jewish state it is a recipe for anarchy. In order to cobble together a government, a would-be prime minister must yield to the demands of diverse special-interest groups, who command much-needed votes in the Knesset, Israel's legislature. The process is ruinously expensive because each potential partner has demands, financial and legislative, favoring his own sector. The stranglehold of the religious parties over legislation has resulted in Israel - a country that, whatever its faults, has a Western-style, open society - having laws of personal status that would shame the Taliban.
Israeli elections are said to be dull. I am not sure that I share that view. For one thing the voter is faced with an embarrassment of choice. Earlier this year, over 30 parties presented lists of candidates for election to the Knesset. You could, for instance, choose to vote for such exotica as the Green Leaf party whose sole platform was the legalization of cannabis. This list received over 40,000 votes, 1.3 percent of the popular vote. With a little more luck it would have passed the 2-percent threshold and would have put into the Knesset three members who would have joined any coalition that permitted them to smoke pot.
Divorcees and dodderers
Frivolity on the part of voters is not confined to Israel but it is only under a system such as Israel's that it can actually make a difference. In Britain the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, founded by the wildly eccentric rock singer, the late Screaming Lord Sutch, has contested numerous constituencies over the years, but never got near to getting a candidate elected to Parliament. Yet, in a by-election in the constituency of Rotherham in 1994, the Screaming Lord succeeded in getting 4.2 percent of the vote. That percentage, translated into Israeli terms, would have earned the raving loonies six seats in the 120-member Knesset. Six seats! They would have been worth gold when the time came for negotiating the coalition. The party whose ideology is "Insanity, Satire, Pragmatism and Existentialism" could have demanded, as a condition for its joining the coalition, that the new government adopt the Loony manifesto demanding the abolition of income tax; the introduction of a 99p (make that agorot) coin to save on change; and the retraining as vicars (rabbis) of traffic police too stupid for normal police work.
Of course, you could add some really mad ideas that might catch on in Israel. This may sound farfetched but you could, for example, propose a law forbidding any man called Cohen from marrying a divorcee.
Getting the Loonies into the Knesset is something of a pipe dream. But, in 2006, something similar did happen to another single-issue party. A perennial no-hoper in Israeli elections was the Pensioners' Party. Its program was to improve the lot of senior citizens, an estimable enough cause, but, in the many previous elections in which it had run, the electorate had chosen to cast its vote for parties with less sectoral aims. But something happened in 2006. Against all expectations, the pensioners' list received almost 6 percent of the popular vote, bringing the party seven seats in the Knesset and taking a group of dazed dodderers to Jerusalem where they found themselves, thanks to the vagaries of the electoral system, wielding a power that they can never have dreamed of as they sat at home dozing in front of their television sets.
How did a party that had in every previous election had meager support, suddenly produce 185,000 votes? This was not a revolt of the aged. It was not that the elderly, however ill-used, had changed their party affiliations to vote en masse for their special interests. This was a vote for a lark by people who would otherwise not have voted at all. It was a classic instance of the social epidemic, a phenomenon analyzed in a much-discussed 2000 book, "The Tipping Point." According to its author, Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, there is a stage that an idea or trend crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like a brushwood fire. This is the tipping point and how it happens is the subject of the book. Here, the word got round that the cool thing to do was to vote for the pensioners. In a matter of days the tipping point was reached.
The beneficiaries of this epidemic, the Pensioners' Party, were not unworthy but the motives for voting for them were essentially irrational. The "connectors" and "mavens" who, according to Gladwell, produce social epidemics could equally have pushed the Raving Loonies or their local equivalents, the War Against the Banks list or the party for men's rights, over the tipping point. Israel's electoral system encourages this type of irresponsibility on the part of the voters.
Unhappy day
It is apparent to any reasonably objective observer that reform of Israel's electoral system is long overdue. The difficulty has been that the very interests whose baleful influence gives rise to the need for reform wield that same disproportionate influence to scupper reform. There has been no shortage of proposals for reform. Indeed, there have been as many such proposals as there are party lists in the elections. In the 1980s a movement for reform spearheaded by prominent law professors actually culminated in a new law: the direct election of the prime minister. Hard though it must have been to achieve, the reform - giving each voter two votes, one for a party list and one for a candidate for prime minister - resulted in even greater chaos than had prevailed hitherto. Fragmentation of government increased and the already outrageous bargaining power of splinter parties was enhanced. The whole sorry experiment was canceled after the elections of 2001 and the old system was restored. So much for law professors.
Electoral reform is once more in the air in Israel. One who has a proposal for reform is Avigdor Lieberman. The head of a party commanding a powerful 11 seats in the Knesset, he has recently joined the ruling coalition. A principal feature of his platform is the redrawing of Israel's boundaries so as to exclude, in favor of a future Palestinian state, areas of Israel that are chiefly populated by Arabs. He has also advocated the death penalty for Arab members of the Knesset that he regards as collaborationists. The fact that liberal-minded ministers find it possible - faute de mieux - to sit in the same government as Lieberman is itself the most eloquent criticism of the state to which Israel's electoral system has reduced us. Lieberman's own proposal for reform is for a "presidential" system. The strong man he has in mind to lead the country under this system is generally assumed to be the one whose face he sees in the bathroom mirror every morning.
It was an unhappy day for Israel when it adopted its unique, nation-wide electoral system. Ben-Gurion himself favored a two-party system with constituencies on the British model. Thanks to pusillanimity on the part of the major parties, this is not likely to happen soon. But one day something like it will have to happen if Israeli democracy is to survive.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tel- Aviv City? Alon and The BOSS
Alon of "Taasuka Acheret" phoned and said a lie that I am irresponsible,
Had enough of their Bull Shit.
Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night now they blew up his house too
Down on the boardwalk they're gettin' ready for a fight gonna see what them racket boys can do
Now there's trouble busin' in from outta state and the D.A. can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade and the gamblin' commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth
CHORUS
Well now everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Well I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew what I had from the Central Trust
And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus
CHORUS
Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold but with you forever I'll stay
We're goin' out where the sand's turnin' to gold so put on your stockin's baby 'cause the night's getting cold
And everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I'm tired of comin' out on the losin' end
So honey last night I met this guy and I'm gonna do a little favor for him
Well I guess everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your hair up nice and set up pretty
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Had enough of their Bull Shit.
Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night now they blew up his house too
Down on the boardwalk they're gettin' ready for a fight gonna see what them racket boys can do
Now there's trouble busin' in from outta state and the D.A. can't get no relief
Gonna be a rumble out on the promenade and the gamblin' commission's hangin' on by the skin of its teeth
CHORUS
Well now everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Well I got a job and tried to put my money away
But I got debts that no honest man can pay
So I drew what I had from the Central Trust
And I bought us two tickets on that Coast City bus
CHORUS
Now our luck may have died and our love may be cold but with you forever I'll stay
We're goin' out where the sand's turnin' to gold so put on your stockin's baby 'cause the night's getting cold
And everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
Well I'm tired of comin' out on the losin' end
So honey last night I met this guy and I'm gonna do a little favor for him
Well I guess everything dies baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your hair up nice and set up pretty
and meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Meet me tonight in Atlantic City
Friday, January 05, 2007
Change the System of Elections to the Knesset!
Here is the Haaretz Editorial from Thursday 4th January 2007.
I agree with this but ask what is the difference in having 17 constituencies instead of what I prefer 60?
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 10:48 04/01/2007
Propitious time for change
By Haaretz Editorial
The presidential commission examining the method of government in
Israel, headed by Prof. Menachem Magidor, has carried out comprehensive
and impressive work. Its most important reccommendation is without a
doubt about what not to do: not to move over to a presidential system,
but on the contrary, to strengthen the parliamentary one.
Over the last few years, the public debate in Israel has tended to
reject the existing system, preferring revolutions instead. But the
majority of the 73 experts who participated in the Magidor commission
maintain that a presidential system is not suitable for the Israel of
today and that the parliamentary system, with all its faults, was and
remains the preferred option. The commission's message is clear: Those
who want to copy the presidential type of government from the United
States must first copy America's rigid constitution and political culture.
The Magidor commission issues recommendations that aim to make the
parliamentary system more efficient to strengthen voter confidence in
the government. Its suggestions include changing the electoral system to
make half of it based on regional representation, raising the electoral
threshold to 2.5 percent, requiring a two-year budget instead of an
annual one, and passing a law that would prevent a fraudulent party census.
President Moshe Katsav is the first president to appoint a public
commission, and he did so in connection with a very important subject.
For this, his initiative should be welcomed, and the pall hovering over
the president due to the criminal allegations against him should not
affect the attitude toward the report. The Magidor report must not be
buried in a drawer like so many other commission findings.
The suggested electoral reforms would harm small parties, but there is
no choice because only in this way will the country be able to have a
stable and more representative political and parliamentary structure.
Historic movements and factions, no matter how unique, will have to find
some way to unite. This necessary process will apparently require
additional time to become accepted in the political world, and will
involve bitter disputes. However, the recommendations dealing with the
Knesset and the government can and must be implemented without delay.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who put the issue on the national agenda,
must now lead the Knesset in adopting the commission's recommendations.
For instance, laws that limit the number of ministers to 18 and require
confirmation hearings for ministers should be passed as soon as
possible. The recommendation that a no-confidence motion should require
submission of a proposed alternative government should also be
considered. This would change a no-confidence motion from a weekly
nuisance to an unusual and significant parliamentary proceeding.
The Knesset would do well to pay a lot of attention to the
recommendations dealing with improving its functioning by decreasing the
number of committees and the number of MKs in each committee. The MKs
should also seriously consider the suggestion to increase the number of
workdays from three a week to four. Even if it seems to them that they
work fairly hard, the public appears to think otherwise. These
recommendations could improve the image of the Knesset and the public
confidence in it.
This is a propitious time and a time of goodwill in the political
system, and it is understood that the method of government must be
changed. The Knesset now faces an important test: Will it take advantage
of the opportunity to improve the system of government, or will it miss
the opportunity?
I agree with this but ask what is the difference in having 17 constituencies instead of what I prefer 60?
w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 10:48 04/01/2007
Propitious time for change
By Haaretz Editorial
The presidential commission examining the method of government in
Israel, headed by Prof. Menachem Magidor, has carried out comprehensive
and impressive work. Its most important reccommendation is without a
doubt about what not to do: not to move over to a presidential system,
but on the contrary, to strengthen the parliamentary one.
Over the last few years, the public debate in Israel has tended to
reject the existing system, preferring revolutions instead. But the
majority of the 73 experts who participated in the Magidor commission
maintain that a presidential system is not suitable for the Israel of
today and that the parliamentary system, with all its faults, was and
remains the preferred option. The commission's message is clear: Those
who want to copy the presidential type of government from the United
States must first copy America's rigid constitution and political culture.
The Magidor commission issues recommendations that aim to make the
parliamentary system more efficient to strengthen voter confidence in
the government. Its suggestions include changing the electoral system to
make half of it based on regional representation, raising the electoral
threshold to 2.5 percent, requiring a two-year budget instead of an
annual one, and passing a law that would prevent a fraudulent party census.
President Moshe Katsav is the first president to appoint a public
commission, and he did so in connection with a very important subject.
For this, his initiative should be welcomed, and the pall hovering over
the president due to the criminal allegations against him should not
affect the attitude toward the report. The Magidor report must not be
buried in a drawer like so many other commission findings.
The suggested electoral reforms would harm small parties, but there is
no choice because only in this way will the country be able to have a
stable and more representative political and parliamentary structure.
Historic movements and factions, no matter how unique, will have to find
some way to unite. This necessary process will apparently require
additional time to become accepted in the political world, and will
involve bitter disputes. However, the recommendations dealing with the
Knesset and the government can and must be implemented without delay.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who put the issue on the national agenda,
must now lead the Knesset in adopting the commission's recommendations.
For instance, laws that limit the number of ministers to 18 and require
confirmation hearings for ministers should be passed as soon as
possible. The recommendation that a no-confidence motion should require
submission of a proposed alternative government should also be
considered. This would change a no-confidence motion from a weekly
nuisance to an unusual and significant parliamentary proceeding.
The Knesset would do well to pay a lot of attention to the
recommendations dealing with improving its functioning by decreasing the
number of committees and the number of MKs in each committee. The MKs
should also seriously consider the suggestion to increase the number of
workdays from three a week to four. Even if it seems to them that they
work fairly hard, the public appears to think otherwise. These
recommendations could improve the image of the Knesset and the public
confidence in it.
This is a propitious time and a time of goodwill in the political
system, and it is understood that the method of government must be
changed. The Knesset now faces an important test: Will it take advantage
of the opportunity to improve the system of government, or will it miss
the opportunity?
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