Israel’s Democratic Foes and Unilateral Woes

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Home Page > News and Society > Israel’s Democratic Foes and Unilateral Woes

Israel’s Democratic Foes and Unilateral Woes

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Posted: May 02, 2007 |Comments: 0
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Amidst battle cries for Israeli cabinet resignations, there lies a sinister undertow that has been slowly churning and deepening over the last decade in Israeli politics. If left unchecked, it threatens the stability of every future Israeli government, and even, by proxy, the future of the State of Israel. The dangerous trend of political unilateralism has paved the way for the type of political negligence and arrogance that was so shockingly documented in the Winograd Report.

Political Unilateralism has become the scourge of Israeli politics. Issues of grave importance and vitality to national security are left to the whims of leaders who believe they have been voted a personal mandate and therefore are personally responsible for Israel’s welfare. These same leaders present strategies that become their personal missions, and, instead of engaging in democratic debate or creative analysis, push their agendas through government via deals, party politics and back room bartering. Looking at the last decade’s most important national decisions we see a pattern of unilateralism and non-democratic means utilised to push these decisions through the Knesset and out of reach of open and effective democratic challenge.

The Oslo Accords, hatched by a secretive elite and unleashed onto an unsuspecting world with great fanfare, were only presented to the Israeli Knesset after a White House signing. The subsequent vote was won by a breathtakingly slim margin that was manipulated by weeks of closed-door meetings. The trademark of this period was a rampage of violent Palestinian terror. Despite this, the legacy of Oslo was major concessions expected by Israel in return for empty promises from the Palestinians.

Under Ehud Barak, Israel’s midnight flight from Lebanon was preceded by his daily personal pronouncements months in advance despite the army being under fire daily. This was followed closely by his shocking, non- government ratified concessions to Arafat at Camp David, which were famously turned down. The result of this offer was the fury of the second intifada. The legacy of his Lebanon decision was the build-up of Hizbollah on the Lebanese border, and ultimately, the Second Lebanon War.

Ariel Sharon, the sanitizer of political unilateralism, championed the popular strategy that maintained Israel would eventually determine it’s borders if not diplomatically, then unilaterally. Nobody would have imagined that this would translate into the transfer and expulsion of thousands of Jews from their homes by a Jewish government. All this took place amidst blatantly undemocratic threats to fire any minister in the cabinet who did not vote for the disengagement. The result was daily rocket attacks on Israeli civilian populations, and unchecked tunnel building and smuggling of arms into all the evacuated areas. The legacy of this period was the consequent Palestinian elections that brought Hamas into power and onto the world diplomatic stage.

All of the above decisions had severe national consequences. None of the above strategies had a clear national consensus. None of the above was put to a national referendum, despite public outcry. At all times, any massive public protest, from oslo to Gaza, was undemocratically and forcibly opposed and suppressed, from not issuing permits, stopping buses en route, to extreme police violence. It is becoming clear that political unilateralism in Israel is not taking any cues from democracy, but rather from our Arab neighbors.

This political unilateralism has developed as a result of Israel’s party politics. By the time a Prime Minister has taken office, he is convinced of his popularity, national approval, and therefore personal mandate. In addition, this system has all but obliterated political accountability. In parallel to the growth of unilateralism, the Israeli public has felt increasingly powerless to engage in effective democratic protest. If Israel were to replace party popularity with regional responsibility via regional elections, all elected Knesset members would at least be accountable to their constituents, not their parties, and the people would finally have a voice in the Knesset.

It has been long understood that Israeli’s have admired the “bulldozer” mentality and are willing to push aside such “irrelevancies” as democratic discourse in favor of looking “tough” in a region of autocratic bullies. This might be an effective strategy if our political unilateralism was applied in Israel’s best interests, quid pro quo with the Arab world. But when unilateralism is manipulated to seemingly promote democratic ideals when in fact it is achieving the opposite, it becomes a danger to our very existence.

After the Winograd Interim Report, there will be committees established to determine anything and everything from decision making to strategic thinking to wartime chains of command. It is vital for Israel’s future that there be an official recommendation to change the electoral system if our dangerous political malaise is to be cured.

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JODI LEVY -
About the Author:

Jodi Levy is a designer, copywriter and mother of three who is deeply concerned about the global Islamic threat.

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