Sixty-three years after its founding, Israel is a young democracy still struggling for survival in a sea of autocracy. It also faces an unprecedented assault on its legitimacy. Yet instead of uniting to face the myriad threats from without, we find ourselves divided over equally serious threats from within.
Over the past several months, the Knesset has been inundated with a series of bills that threaten to rend the delicate fabric of our multicultural society and undermine the democratic character of our state. In parallel, some parts of the rabbinical establishment are attempting to assert a monopoly over the state’s Jewish values.
To block the descent down this slippery slope, it is necessary to define the rules of the game and address the unresolved question of our national identity through the consensual adoption of a constitution, and the enactment of a series of badly needed political reforms.
Contemporary politics here is dominated by small parties. Most put the interest of their narrow constituencies before the national interest, and also do not practice democracy in their internal processes. This makes prime ministers increasingly dependent on such nondemocratic parties.
Clearly, one of the most important solutions is structural: We must adopt a number of electoral reforms so as to strengthen the large, nonsectarian parties that comprised the country’s political backbone until the 1990s. Most of the necessary measures are well known; what is lacking is the political will.
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