Home » The vagaries of a parliamentary system may allow Netanyahu to return to power

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The vagaries of a parliamentary system may allow Netanyahu to return to power — 28 Comments

  1. Vagaries is quite apt!

    Israel’s system is far more complex and nuanced than most parliamentary systems. Add to that many strong personalities and, it appears, a good deal of infighting and backstabbing and it becomes almost inscrutable to outsiders.

    Bottom line: I hope Bibi is able to return. And soon.

  2. Biden could appoint Ilhan Omar to be ambassador. That would get her out of Minnesota.

  3. Bennett’s coalition was a ghastly chimera and it’s surprising it has lasted as long as it did. Bennett has exposed himself as an opportunist, so it would be agreeable if his party were electorally destroyed.

    If I understand correctly, there’s an adequate majority for a starboard government, but Avigdor Lieberman and others are fed up with Bibi and refuse to co-operate with him. Maybe it’s time for the 73 year old Bibi to retire or repair to local politics.

  4. Israel’s system is far more complex and nuanced than most parliamentary systems.

    Not institutionally. They have a disagreeable electoral system and a great many cross-cutting cleavages in their political life, so you have about 20 political parties in the legislature. Also, Israeli Jews have on average terrible manners and political discourse is suffused with vitriolic rhetoric.

  5. Art Deco:

    Terrible manners? Do they not use the correct fork or something? Yes, they argue. And “vitriolic rhetoric” is a not-unheard-of part of the democratic process in most non-dictatorships.

    The Japanese have exquisite manners, and yet they’ve had this sort of thing in their legislature:

  6. Do they not use the correct fork or something?

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/israelis-are-blunt-and-rude-you-got-a-problem-with-that/

    John Derbyshire wrote some time back that he admires Israel from afar but had been told by journalists that the press tends to favor the Arab cause because on a mundane basis in Israel the Arabs are much more pleasant. My rather phlegmatic brother toured Israel in 1984 with an Israel-born Jew, who was teaching him bits of Hebrew along the way (“I figure It’s meant to be shouted”).

  7. Israeli arab citizen Islamists:

    It’s not clear from the article what political segment the attackers are from. There is an Islamist vote in Israel, but it’s a fairly weak segment of the Arab political spectrum. If I’m not mistaken, it’s strongest among southern Bedouin.

  8. Both previous attacks prior to today were by Israeli arab citizen Islamists. So, yes, I am prejudging the probable identity of today’s attacker(s). Big fucking deal, eh?

  9. https://www.ibtimes.sg/hamas-chief-ismail-haniyeh-lauds-terror-attack-israel-that-killed-five-people-tel-aviv-suburb-63655

    Here’s a discussion which includes some quotations from the boss of Hamas. Another source has this quotation:

    ““The resistance against the occupation and the soldiers is continuous and escalating. It is a natural response in defense of our people and our sanctuaries. We congratulate the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) for the heroic operation that took place this evening, in the middle of Tel Aviv, and led to the killing of a number of occupying soldiers and Zionist settlers,” the statement said.

    “The continuation of the occupations terrorism and crimes, and its attempts to Judaize Jerusalem, and to make sacrifices in the courtyards of the Al Aqsa Mosque to build their alleged temple, on the so-called Easter holiday, without which blood and bullets stand. Our people will not allow that, and our resistance will stand by anyone who thinks of violating our sanctity and our sanctuary, and the days bear witness to that,” the statement said. ”

    You’ll notice that all four attacks occurred inside the 1949 armistice lines and that two of them took place in cities founded by Jews. That’s what they mean by ‘the occupation’.

  10. Re Japanese “brawl” video: One guy picked up a chair to throw but changed his mind. A woman struck someone with the bottom of her clenched hand. Someone threw shredded paper. Guess there were no pillows handy.

  11. The major problem with Israel’s parliamentary system is that there is no geographic representation. You vote for a party, not a candidate. The more votes that party gets, the more members of the Knesset they get. Since MKs don’t represent any specific geographic region, they are not accountable to voters and their allegiance is to the party.

    Silman was reportedly promised the 10th spot on the Likud list and a ministerial post should they be able to form a government.

    The American founding fathers were brilliant in putting most of the legislative power in the House of Representatives, making House members represent a specific district of voters, and putting them up for election every two years, keeping them accountable.

  12. Israel has to deal with a hostile US regime, some what similar to the Obama regime. A crisis is coming if Biden surrenders to the Iranians with a new agreement on nuclear weapons. That is likely.

  13. “…if Biden surrenders to the Iranians …”

    Actually, “Biden” doesn’t even have to OFFICIALLY surrender to the Iranians.
    (Since “he”‘s already done it…and any “deal” that might be made doesn’t have to be ratified by Congress, along the model of the precedent, JPCOA.)

    The whole thing can just continue along the path it is going—with no “deal” ever made (though it WILL likely happen)—while Iran keeps on doing what it’s doing….

    ….keeps on developing what it’s developing—“deal” or no “deal”—while “Biden” can always claim, “But we were PREVENTED (by you know who!!) from getting the deal done…Not our fault. We did our best, etc., etc….”

    IOW, at this point, it doesn’t matter. Iran gets what it wants. “Biden” gets to cover “his” backside…with—special BONUS—Israel and its supporters getting the blame for “blocking” the “deal”….

    Win-win “Biden”/Mullah style….

    (Think of it as an inertia-entropy continuum…)

  14. @Neo er are you sure that is Japan’s Parliament?! Cause at 20 seconds onwards that’s the Taiwan flag behind them. And it sure looks like Legislative Yuan than the Japan’s National Diet?

    As for Israel’s change in government I’m Malaysian and we had this happen to us just before covid hit. Which really sucks cause when our election happened in 2018 we had finally kicked out the ruling government of over 50 years. Then to have it all change back due to the same vagaries of a Parliamentary System in under 2 years. Then to go into country wide lockdown for almost 2 years.

    My sympathy for Israel, it’s as special kind of kick in the jewels to have this level of uncertainty in times like this.

  15. I was wondering about that myself.
    Since it is actually Taiwan that has a vigorous “tradition” of “kinetic” legislation.
    One might even call it a “muscular democracy”….

    (Though Japan does have “traditions” of its own—at least on occasion—such as the disembowelment of legislators by nationalist-novelist-inspired acolytes…)

  16. @Barry Meislin those Japanese Nationalist to give it a modern phrase loved to LARP the Military government of Japan prior to WW2. I remembered watching one of their rallies when I visited Japan in 2017 with my wife. It was just a small group of guys around their flags with mic’s while everybody just ignored and walked pass them.

    Studying some of their literature I found it interesting how much of their view points and propaganda is taken from the Japanese Army WW2 side of view and not the Japanese WW2 Navy viewpoint.

  17. Chang, now that you mention it, I wonder if that is because, for all its initial successes, the failure of the IJN at the Battle of Midway was—fortunately—the beginning of the end of Japan’s imperial dream (though it would take a lot of incredibly hard fighting and two A-bombs to finally achieve that…and even if one might argue, with justice, that attacking Pearl Harbor was what set in motion Imperial Japan’s ultimate demise).
    So I wonder if the navy was scapegoated because of that…while the army—especially because of its ferocious defense of, e.g., Iwo Jima, was not similarly “tainted”.
    – – – – – –
    Update:
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/tel-aviv-terrorist-killed-after-shootout-with-with-police-special-forces/

  18. @Barry Meislin I feel it’s the other way around. Post WW2 the remaining IJN officers embraced the changes and thus they were not taken out of the halls of power like the Japanese soldiers of WW2, it’s very complicated but I will try to explain.

    Basically the IJN was looked upon with some pride by the Japanese people post WW2 while the army and it’s actions in WW2 was a shame they wanted to forget. The army veterans were angered, and their views and teachings was embraced by the disenfranchised in Japan.

    That’s as basic as I can summarize 70 years of a political movement.

  19. The American founding fathers were brilliant in putting most of the legislative power in the House of Representatives, making House members represent a specific district of voters, and putting them up for election every two years, keeping them accountable.

    The British Commons and the lower chambers of the colonial assemblies were elected in single-member districts. It wasn’t some brainstorm of James Madison’s.

    The most severe problem with Israel’s electoral system is that national list PR in a social context like Israel’s generates abnormal fragmentation in the party system and in the legislature. You can ameliorate that by putting arbitrary lower limits on electoral support in order to obtain a seat (which Germany did in 1949) or you can make use of geographic representation to promote aggregation. Then you have the challenge of containing problems associated with gerrymandering as well as selecting a tabulation system. One utility of geographic representation is that it provides an avenue for constituent service and for candidates to be selected by caucuses of local party members rather than by bosses. (An avenue only. You continue to have candidates parachuted in by bosses in Canada and Britain and France).

  20. I think it is in Taiwan. You’ll see the CBS feed is labeled ‘Taipei’. The people who assemble copy for local news anchors aren’t any stronger in geography than Jay Leno’s interview subjects.

  21. Art Deco; Barry Meislin:

    Do a search for something like “fight in Japanese parliament” and you’ll find many videos and many articles about it. That video I put up was labeled as having been from that particular fight. I certainly don’t know, but the point is that there was such a fight and plenty of reports about it as well as videos.

  22. @neo I think Art Deco, Barry Meislin and I are just being pedantic. I personally to believe the event happened in Japanese parliament. I remember seeing it myself in the news in Malaysia years ago, so there is no doubt in my mind the crux of your point that even the polite Japanese Parliament got physical.

    It’s just that in the specific video you linked the CBS Philly showed the Taiwanese Assembly instead of the Japanese parliament and to me at least it just reeks of laziness and the closet racism I observe from these so called journalists. To paraphrase Chris Tucker “All y’all look alike!”

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