Can Israel’s Electoral System Be Reformed?

Israel’s recent elections were a reminder for many of the instability of the country’s electoral system. Since 1988, not a single government has lived out its entire four-year term. Under the Basic Law, the seats of the Knesset are divided in direct proportion to the percentage of the vote won by each party. There are no electoral districts; nor is there a system (as in Britain and France) to ensure a clear victor in every election. Binyamin Lashkar argues that a modest change might do much good:

We need to be very careful when changing the rules of the game. There are always unexpected results. Perhaps we could try [to amend the laws so that] elections are held for the first 100 seats in the Knesset, and the party with the most votes will then be awarded the remaining twenty. This is a significant addition for winning; under such a system, the public will no doubt prefer voting for likely winners. . . . Such a change will create an incentive for parties to unite and will encourage the formation of two large parties which can easily run the country. And the land would be at peace—at least for four years.

Read more at Mida

More about: Israel & Zionism, Israel's Basic Law, Israeli democracy, Israeli politics, Knesset

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF