Making sense of Israel’s election results is difficult, even for Israelis.  Israelis certainly find it bewildering and they’ve lived with the process their entire lives.  American outsiders looking in find it inscrutable.  Despite their difference in appearance, Israeli and American democracy share the same goals: to reflect the voices of the people, but to restrain the majority from trampling the rights of the minority.

Israel is a parliamentary democracy.  When a citizen votes in Israel he or she casts a ballot for a party, not a person.  Every time a party gets enough votes, it gets another seat in the Knesset—Israel’s legislature.  In the United States citizens vote for a specific politician in their region—the party is less important than the person running for office.  Before each election parties publish lists all of their members who are ranked from the leader on down.  So ballots are cast and parties are allocated seats in the new session of the Knesset.  In this election, Benjamin Netanyahu’s party, Likud, won 31 seats (out of 120) in the Knesset.  That means that his party won roughly a quarter of all votes.  Even with just over a quarter of seats in the Knesset, Likud is the largest single party.  How can anyone get anything done in this situation?

This works because Israel’s executive is not one person, it’s a cabinet composed of leaders from several parties.  It has to be, because the only way laws can be passed is if a majority of the Knesset votes for it and that means that the members of the cabinet have to be party leaders.

Israel has a president, but the president’s executive powers are intentionally limited.  The president’s job is to ensure stability and serve as a check on the Knesset.  Real executive power resides in the Knesset.  The opposite is true in America where the legislature (Congress) makes laws and the executive (the President) enforces them.  Not so in Israel.  The cabinet is a group of ministers whose job it is to oversee particular government duties.  So, there is a Foreign Ministry, a Treasury, etc.  The United States has a cabinet appointed by the President, approved by the Senate, and responsible to the President alone.  The American cabinet cannot have legislators and they are only supposed to enforce the President’s will.  Israel’s cabinet, unlike the United States, is composed of legislators.  These legislators are always leaders or important figures in their political parties.

Israel’s cabinet is particularly important then.  Nothing can be done without consensus in the cabinet, because if the cabinet does not agree, then it is unlikely that there will be enough votes in the Knesset to pass a new law.  How do you get several political parties to agree?  Well, the first thing you do is to divide up the responsibilities of the cabinet.  The largest party typically gets the post of Prime Minister, plus one or two plum positions.  The next largest party might get the Foreign Ministry or Treasury—two very important positions.  Everyone knows that when a party gets a ministry it has a responsibility to follow through on its promises as much as it can within that ministry.  So, to get your party’s agenda passed you have to play well with others.  It’s the ultimate in leadership by consensus.  And reaching consensus takes time.

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Clearly, this is a fraught time in Israel-Palestinian relations.  A third intifada may not happen, but violence is increasing.  Abbas– unable to achieve his goals despite grandstanding at the UN– is threatening to resign and let the Palestinian Authority fall apart (or fall to Hamas).  Many blame Israeli intransigence.  Settlements are the issue, some say.  Others say that Palestinian grievances rightfully go back to 1947.  The realist, though, cannot deny that, in the end, Israel is here to stay.  Muslims, Jews, Druze, and Christians all prefer living in Israel to the possibility of living under the Palestinian Authority or any of their Arab neighbors.  Even if one accepts that the UN’s creation of a Jewish state was wrongheaded (and that is not a view we endorse), it is without doubt that eradicating Israel would only compound the injustice.  A realist, then, says that the Arab states must accept Israel.  The Palestinians must accept Israel.  All must move on with what they have and try to make the best of it.

It is unfortunate that Islamists are not realists.  Their dedication to Israel’s destruction betrays their deep-seated anti-Semitism and their hatred of Western culture and values.  Lacking military power, Islamist groups have sought other outlets to score points over Israel.  Craven cultural relativists allow them a place in the UN and a hearing in the world’s media.  This, in turn, gives the Islamists sympathetic defenders when organizations like Hamas fire rockets into Israel or Hezbollah blows up buses full of children.  When Israel commits itself to battle with these terrorists it does exceptionally well in the military sphere, but has trouble with the PR battle.  When Israel treats with these terrorist groups it finds that for every concession it makes the terrorists up the ante.  Israel cannot achieve peace, because the terrorists don’t want peace.  Again, a realist looks at this situation and shakes his head in wonder: can’t the Islamists see that they are dying and achieving nothing?  Why not take a deal?

They’re not taking a deal because we’ve taught them that it’s not worth their while.  They’ve lived on handouts for so long that they cannot make the hard choices that come with responsibility.  In this case it’s much easier to keep a war going than it is to opt for peace, because during war you can always blame your opponents for your own failures.

It’s worth taking a moment to note: we do not mean that individual Arabs or Muslims are incapable of being responsible citizens.  There are millions of responsible Arabs and Muslims in both Israel and the United States who vote, exercise their freedoms while respecting others’ freedoms, and are good citizens all around.  We are talking here about the organizations who eschew meaningful dialogue and opt instead for violence out of ideological blindness or because they cannot exist any other way.

Take, for example, the Palestinian Authority.  The Palestinian Authority has lived off the largesse of international donors and Israel for years.  The PA was intended to be a stepping-stone to self-government.  Fatah, as a part of the Oslo Accords, even publicly renounced the destruction of Israel as a goal.  It sounds admirable, but in practice not much changed.  Fatah worked with Israel, but its leaders siphoned international aid into their own pockets.  When Palestinians asked why their life had not improved, it was blamed on Israel.  Violence continued with the Second Intifada.  International money– when it has found its way to the Palestinian Authority– has been used to build up a police state where Freedom of Speech has no meaning.  Journalists who report on dissent are jailed or exiled.  The Palestinian Authority refuses to pay for the electric power it gets from Israel and even forgives its residents’ power bills to buy their loyalty.  For years it has known that if Israel cuts off power the PA can blame Israel and avoid any responsibility for its own malfeasance.

Hamas is a similar matter.  Though Hamas has far less international legitimacy than the Palestinian Authority, it nevertheless subsists on handouts from the international community.  Millions of dollars are channeled into UN schools run by Hamas.  Though those schools exist and function, they are also money-laundering operations that channel UN money to less savory activities.  Refugee camps throughout the Middle East have kept Palestinians reliant on the international dole for three generations.

And what has all this led to?  It has shattered old family and tribal networks that may have formed the basis of good government.  It has created ecologically unsustainable concentrations of people in places like Gaza, which can produce practically nothing on its own, but exists because that’s where the handouts are.  The leadership in Gaza and the West Bank are uninterested in peace, because peace would mean admitting that they are uninterested in actual statesmanship.  Fatah, Hamas, and its ilk are only interested in power.  To maintain themselves in power they hold their own people hostage.  They do that by attacking Israel.  Any response by Israel, no matter how muted, is ratcheted up into an international sensation.  To keep the peace, the international community buys the terrorists off with money and verbal declarations of support.  Rather than encouraging peace, it has only encouraged war.  And we have been fools for playing along.

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Much is being made of Al-Jazeera’s purchase of Al Gore’s television channel, Current TV. Current TV was created by Gore and businessman friend Joel Hyatt. The channel was unabashedly progressive and specifically aimed at a young market. Though it was intended to revolutionize television, Current TV not only failed to change television, but it also failed to make much money. Current TV was, simply put, unpopular. There was nothing that it provided that other channels didn’t do better. Its intended progressive market niche was already occupied by MSNBC and Jon Stewart. In the last several years it has transformed from a sort of rotisserie news network to one featuring original programming to one featuring television simulcasts of popular radio shows. These format changes alienated an already small audience and failed to gain them any additional viewers.

Current TV does not have many viewers and it doesn’t make much money. So why is Al-Jazeera buying it?

At first glance, Current TV does have one asset: access. Its cable partners broadcast Current TV into sixty million households. Right now, Al-Jazeera only reaches 4.7 million households. For Al-Jazeera this is an opportunity to reach beyond Washington D.C. and New York City and into “middle America.” There is a catch, however. Time-Warner Cable, the second largest television provider in the United States, is determined to dump Current TV even though it is being remade into Al-Jazeera America. Even though this will significantly cut into Al-Jazeera America’s potential reach, it’s still a huge step up in exposure for the Qatar-based television network.

Bully for Al-Jazeera, bad for the U.S.

Al-Jazeera promotes itself as an earnest and honest news network that provides a different perspective: instead of Westerners reporting on the Middle East, it is Arabs reporting on events in their region. Let us not be fooled, though. While a claim might be made that Western news outlets like CNN or SkyNews are biased, they are beholden to a huge number of sponsors, cable outlets, and television viewers. They simply cannot afford to be a propaganda organ. Al-Jazeera has no such restriction.

Al-Jazeera is responsible to one person only: the Emir of Qatar. There are no restrictions on the Emir’s power. His government (such as it is) is highly personalized and idiosyncratic (the Emir’s cousin runs Al-Jazeera). He is also extraordinarily wealthy. Al-Jazeera cannot survive without his patronage, much less expand and thrive. Al-Jazeera and all of its employees have every reason to toe the Emir’s line. This means suppressing news that casts Qatar in a bad light. This means always taking the Palestinian side, even when Israel is clearly in the right. It means misrepresenting the Arab Spring so as not to undermine the Emir’s absolute power. It means ignoring the very real existence of slavery in the country. How can anyone expect a news organization to be reliable or honest when it is essentially a propaganda service for a despot?

Current TV– which aimed to be a transformative news network for a new generation– is shutting its doors and being replaced by a Qatari propaganda organ. And what do the former owners of Current TV get out of this? Money. Current TV barely made a profit and was never able to leverage its viewership into a successful IPO. For Al-Jazeera, Current TV fills a need that makes the investment worthwhile. And finally, after years of struggling, Current TV’s original investors are finally seeing a payoff. It’s just too bad that they are selling out their purported values at the same time.

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What a year!

What a terrible, wonderful, violent, peaceful year!

Parts of the world are moving in slow motion, while other parts are moving too fast for us to grasp.  Israel’s neighbors are caught in a maelstrom of change.  The Arab Spring is a poisoned pill for Israel: the fall of the old despots held the promise of democracy, but that has not brought peace.  Instead it has brought Islamic radicalism.  Islamist militants have used the opportunity to export war to Mali, Syria, Lebanon, and Mali.

It is a struggle for Americans, Europeans, and Israelis to have to accept that Middle Eastern democracy can bring with it something so oppressive.  Westerners look to their own countries and ask, “how did they pervert the process that worked so well for us?”

This brings along with it much navel gazing for the West.  How can Western democracies (and we’re including Israel among them) avoid sliding into theocratic rule?  How have they managed to remain liberal democracies for so long?  It’s not that Westerners are less religious than their Arabic counterparts.  No one can claim that American politics is not suffused with religion.  Israeli Jews are no less fervent believers than Christians or Muslims.  So, what gives?

Minority rights.  That’s what gives.

Political philosophers too often talk about Rousseau and his contributions to the ideas of democracy while forgetting the contributions of earlier thinkers like Locke.  Rousseau spoke about elections and the necessity of majority rule.  Locke spoke about the necessity of natural rights.  That is, that individuals have certain inalienable rights.  There are disagreements on what these rights are, but across the West there is widespread agreement that such rights exist.  To protect these rights, Western governments– from the very beginning of their modern incarnations– have structured themselves to protect their citizens’ rights.

Democracy will inevitably slide into despotism or theocracy without these checks on government.  Israel has not.  A respect for natural rights is why Israel’s large Arabic, Muslim, and Christian populations keep voting.  It is why, for all of the violence that Israel has suffered this year, she remains a vibrant beacon of hope.  This may make other Arab countries blanch, but Israel is a symbol of the promise of democracy.

That’s something that we cannot forget.

The post A Terrible, Wonderful, Violent, Peaceful Year appeared first on Act for Israel.

It is time for action!

The time has come to stand tall and fight for Israel!  In the past year, 157 different anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organizations have joined forces to intimidate Israel’s friends in the United States and throughout the world.  They have used social media to organize high profile campaigns dedicated to tarring Israel and anyone who associates with her.  We must respond to this and show the world that we stand with Israel!

Please sign the petition and add your voice to the growing movement. Together, we will work to ensure that the discriminatory boycott campaign will fail.

Our community must stand united.  Sign the petition, then let us know that you did on Twitter and Facebook by using the hashtag #BDSfail!  Make sure that your voice is heard!

Sign the petition here: www.WeStandForIsrael.com

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If you’re in Los Angeles, come out to support Israel this weekend!

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One of the more remarkable things to have happened this weekend was Egyptian President Morsi’s dismissal of the military’s top echelon.  It’s the kind of thing that has to be done with care.  If Morsi is not assured of the loyalty of the military’s lower ranks then he is running the risk of a coup.  If the military leadership stays fired, then Morsi has consolidated an enormous amount of power into his hands.

What’s fascinating about this move is its timing: just after the killing of over a dozen Egyptian soldiers by Islamist terrorists and a subsequent agreement with Israel to be allowed to move attack helicopters into the Sinai to deal with these terrorists.  Was the Sinai attack enough to convince Morsi that the generals were paper tigers?  Perhaps he feels that the generals were too cozy with Israel.  It’s difficult to say—there are no truly democratic or free institutions that we can use to gauge his administration’s sentiment.  This makes Egypt a dangerous black box.

It’s possible that President Morsi could be aligning Egypt with radical Islamist groups.  I find this doubtful.  Morsi’s moves, including releasing jailed dissidents and proclaiming Egypt’s respect for treaties, seem more in line with someone looking to build a state on popular consensus and neither on radical politics nor on military power.  We can learn a lot from the fact that while some groups in Egypt seek to disavow the Camp David Accords, Morsi’s administration only talks about amending them.  The emendations he is seeking seem to be more symbolic to demonstrate Egyptian sovereignty over the Sinai.  Notably, he is not seeking to demonstrate this to Israelis, because they already recognize Egyptian sovereignty there.  Indeed, if anything, he is making a point to the people living in the Sinai.

Israel must tread carefully, but there are reasons for hope.  First of all, the Egyptian President seems to want good relations with Israel, but he is struggling with pleasing his Muslim Brotherhood constituents and the reality of running Egypt.  Morsi must also face the fact that Egypt’s military is also a powerful commercial force; the military leadership makes a lot of money from the military’s investments and war with Israel would endanger that.  So even though he has fired the top echelon Morsi still has to contend with an Egyptian army that prizes stability, which is very important when we consider that Israel is the economic powerhouse of the region.

The post The Conundrum of Egypt appeared first on Act for Israel.

The Palestinian Authority is going to the UN to ask to be recognized as an observer state.  It doesn’t seem like it should be a notable event, but it is fraught with danger.  Something like 100 countries recognize Palestine as a state and most of the Western countries have relations with the Palestinian Authority even if they don’t recognize Palestine as a separate country.  This isn’t all that special.  Legally, the PA has a customs union with Israel, after all.  Since 1998 the PLO has been allowed to sit in the General Assembly as an observer, though not as an observer state.

Now here’s the kicker: if the Palestinian Authority becomes a non-member observer state it is allowed to join the International Criminal Court.  Israel (like the United States) does not recognize the authority of the ICC, but nearly all of Europe does.  You can bet that the PA will try to use the ICC to screw things up for Israel.  If the Palestinian Authority convinces the ICC to indict an Israeli politician that person will have an impossible time conducting business outside of the United States and Israel. And you can bet that the Palestinian Authority will start pushing the ICC to hand down an indictment of genocide.  Given Israel’s stance on free trade and active foreign policy this is practically a political death sentence.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is a canny politician.  He knows that he has the votes he needs to succeed in the General Assembly.  He must also know that becoming an observer state in the UN will not increase the Palestinian Authority’s power on the ground, but it will give him new levers to use against Israel.  The Israeli government is being wrongfooted and isolated by Abbas.  In times like these the American-Israeli alliance needs to be closer than ever.

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When Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip it wasted little time in consolidating its power.  Part of this was a purge of Fatah members from government.  Proving that it could stand up to Israel was another part.  So, Hamas began a campaign of inciting Israel to war.  The result was Operation Cast Lead.  In three weeks Israel crushed the Hamas paramilitary forces, losing only six soldiers to enemy fire.  At the end of the day, Hamas was defeated because its forces had insufficient weaponry, insufficient training, and insufficient commitment.  Thousands of militiamen fled before Israel’s army.

For Hamas to challenge Israel with inferior weaponry and inferior resources it had to make up for it with superior commitment.  This requires indoctrination.  Hamas is following Hezbollah’s lead by setting up a series of kindergartens and schools dedicated to training children to hate and to kill.  The aim is to so shape children’s minds so that they cannot accept a world with Israel and are willing to kill to achieve it.

Whatever pity one may have for folks in the Gaza Strip it is hard to fathom a world in which a people’s piteous state somehow excuses things like this.

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