The Hyper-Democratization of the Knesset

On the eve of Israel's national elections, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the accelerating decay of the country's political institutions. Focused on expressing solidarity as the intifada grows ever more violent, supporters of the Jewish state fail to notice that Israeli democracy is hyperactive, fragmented and increasingly corrupt.

While there may be no consensus in Israel on how to deal with the Palestinians, there is a deep reservoir of public support for responsible steps to stabilize and strengthen political life. There are no magic formulas or silver bullets, but raising the electoral threshold - the minimum number of votes needed for representation in the Knesset - is one small reform that would go a long way toward fixing what is wrong.

Not only is raising the electoral threshold a step most Israelis support, but it can be done without regard to the security situation. Technical and obtuse as it may seem, Israel's advocates can hardly find a better expression of their solidarity than standing up for and supporting such electoral reform.

Politics in Israel have always reflected a society divided by competing social, economic and political ideologies. The role of Arab citizens, separation of religion and state, and ethnic tensions have long challenged the country's democratic institutions. Above all, decades of Arab hostility and later a sputtering peace process deepened political rifts at home. But today, political institutions are as much a cause of cleavage and instability as they are a reflection of differences over national priorities.

With this month's ballot, Israel has held no less than four national elections since 1995. The number of parliamentary seats going to the smallest parties has increased 150% during the last decade. The two largest parties, Labor and Likud, have less than half the parliamentary seats they held just 20 years ago. New revelations about influence-peddling and vote-buying in the recent Likud Party primary reflect a larger political environment that is growing ever more dysfunctional.

Endowed with a heritage of persecution and political marginalization, the founders of the Jewish state were intent on establishing a democracy that gave political space to every voice. But over time, this system of hyper-plurality led to ever-worsening political extortion by small parties and the Israeli public grew weary of the horse-trading and chicanery that characterized the rise and fall of governing coalitions.

The architects of Israel's ill-fated experiment with electoral reform during the 1990s hoped to stabilize the system by curbing the power of small parties. The centerpiece of the reform program was the direct election of the prime minister, a major departure from Israel's traditional parliamentary order. But the voter threshold was kept low. Almost from the start, the promise of electoral reform turned into a nightmare.

The combination of direct election and a low threshold opened the way for every upstart politician, disaffected party dissident and special-interest advocate to grasp at a seat in the Knesset. A slight increase in the threshold, to 1.5% from 1%, during the early 1990s led to a decline in small party representation. But by 1996, when electoral reform was fully implemented and Israelis were armed with two ballots, one for prime minister and one for party, the decline of the two main parties accelerated and political life quickly atomized.

By 1999, Labor and Likud held just 45 seats in the 120-member Knesset - down from 95 in 1981. Fully one-quarter of the Knesset is held by the smallest parties, those that received less than 5% of the vote. More than 30 parties qualified to run in the last Knesset election. Twenty-nine will participate in the January vote.

In early 2001, sobered by the serious damage electoral reform was causing, the larger parties decided to scrap the new system and return to the old. But the most problematic attribute of the old system, the low electoral threshold, has been left in place.

What once may have been viewed as a beacon of pluralism is now the single most destructive feature of an increasingly unstable political system. Among functioning democracies, Israel has the lowest national threshold. In other countries, higher electoral thresholds have helped supplant political cleavages, reinforce the role of parties and exclude the most extreme, illiberal voices. Germany has a 5% threshold, as does South Korea. Austria and Hungary set the bar at 4%. In the United States, were it not for a high threshold - the highest, in fact, a "winner take all" system - the likes of David Duke or Louis Farrakhan would have long ago won national elective office.

A higher threshold is not an absolute guarantee of keeping extremists out of mainstream political institutions, but it can go a long way. Raising the electoral bar in Israel would push extremist voices to the fringes, forcing parties to moderate their positions or find themselves without a seat in the Knesset. It would certainly put an end to many of the immigrant micro-parties that have damaged the long-standing national ideal of immigrant absorption. It would also reduce the influence of those on the far-right who advocate "transfer" or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and those on the far-left whose one-sided condemnations of Israel serve as fodder for apologists for terrorism. It may not reverse Labor's decline, which has more to do with issues than institutions, but reform will benefit Israeli political society as a whole.

Regardless of which party wins the January 28 ballot, raising the electoral threshold must be a national priority. Even though some parties stand to gain in this election from the repeal of the direct election law, there is unlikely to be a solid bloc to shepherd new reform measures. Moreover, if Labor refuses to join a unity government, small parties will hold even greater sway and will undoubtedly renew their stranglehold over attempts to raise the electoral threshold - which is why this reform should be put to a national referendum.

Raising the threshold to 3-5% would mean more parties with broad-based platforms. Rather than magnify extremist or fringe agendas, Israeli political parties would become more effective vehicles for synthesizing and refining mainstream popular opinion - which is what political parties are supposed to do. A loss of absolute pluralism would be a gain for stable, effective representative government.

Electoral reform may not seem urgent at a time when Palestinians have launched a brutal, misguided and self-defeating war against Israel. It also rubs against an Israeli ethos that is crisis-oriented and prone to quick-fixes. But reform is not only essential to the future stability of political life in Israel, it is critical for building a national consensus to confront the grave security challenges that lie ahead. Supporters of Israel can best express solidarity by pushing Jerusalem to make political institutions more representative of a united people.