Israeli Analysis Group-Session V – November 14, 2006

Professor Amnon Rubinstein, IDC Herzliya

Meyrav Wurmser: Let’s get started. If everybody could take their seats, please. I am

Meyrav Wurmser. I direct the Center for Middle East Policy here at Hudson. On Friday, I opened up the Israeli papers and once again learned that Israelis are considering a major reform to their system of government.

What else is new? Israeli governments almost never served their full term and the political system has frequently been blamed for that. The kind of proposal would automatically make the head of the biggest party the prime minister rather than make it a member of Knesset who was able to form coalition after being asked to do so by the president of the state. It will make a vote of no confidence possible only with the majority of 66 members of Knesset rather than 61. It would limit the number of ministers to a team rather than anything that the prime minister wants it to be according to the size of the coalition. Israel has an unbelievable number of ministers every time it has an election because everybody wants to be a minister, and the coalition keeps growing and growing like that.

Male Voice: [Inaudible]

Meyrav Wurmser: Yes. I asked our speaker today, Professor Amnon Rubinstein, to talk about this and many other proposals to change Israel’s electoral system. Professor Rubinstein is

-- this is a man who has done and been everything. He is a journalist and a professor of law. In

1974, he founded the Shinui Party, which advocated free enterprise, electoral reform, and the formulation of a written constitution. During his 25 years of serving as a member of Knesset, he

1 held a variety of positions including Education Minister. In recent years, he published a number of articles and books opposing the post-Zionist trend in emphasizing humanistic and liberal foundations of Zionism.

When Professor Rubinstein retired from the Knesset, his farewell speech was met with applause from representatives of all the parties, a rare event in Israel that demonstrated the high regard of his accomplishments. He then went on to serve as the dean of the School of Law of the

Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya and then the university provost. He is now the president of the Interdisciplinary Center.

In 2006, Professor Rubinstein was awarded the Israel Price, the highest price bestowed on any one individual in the State of Israel. The panel of judges described Professor Rubinstein as the Father of Constitutional Law in Israel, noting that his book, Constitutional Law of the

State of Israel, is the primary text on the topic. Most recently, Professor Rubinstein was asked by Prime Minister Olmert to serve as the President of the State of Israel. As some of you might know, the President of the State of Israel is blamed for raping several women, which is not good, and will probably be forced to resign. And Professor Rubinstein was asked to replace him.

Professor Rubinstein turned that request down, saying that he is enjoying writing much too much to want to be the president. Professor Rubinstein, please.

Amnon Rubinstein: [Inaudible]. Now, to the subject of our talk. It has been said about the British constitution that its charm lies in its non-existence, while Israelis do not even have that consolation because the very issue whether a constitution exists or not is subject like everything else to a heated debate. The majority of judges in the Supreme Court think that there is a constitution and that there is judicial review, which they exercise over legislation. A minority of judges do not accept that view.

2 In the Knesset, opinions, needless to say, are split. Jewish religious orthodox parties are very much against this position that there is a constitution and specifically against judicial review of legislation. Why is there no agreement on the constitution? It all dates back to 4849, to the emergence of the fledgling State of Israel. Until the UN partition plan for Palestine, there should have been a constitution guaranteeing human rights and minority rights in both states, the Arab and the Jewish one. And indeed, the original arrangement was for a constituent assembly to be elected to write a constitution very much like the Philadelphia experience, and then only then would there be regular elections to parliaments.

David Ben-Gurion, who was a very dominant figure at that time, vetoed this, and with quite a lot of cunning and political skills prevented this from happening. It is a long story. It is a fascinating story but we will not go into it. But it really is a story of how one man in contravention of the will of the majority of the Knesset succeeded in diverting the declared statement of the declaration of independence and the UN partition plan and turned Israel into a constitution-less parliamentary democracy.

Now, what motivated Ben-Gurion? Many things. But one of them was that he did want not Israel to follow proportional representation. You must remember that these men -–

Weitzman [phonetic], Ben-Gurion, the founding fathers of Israel -- had no democratic experience in Tsarist Russia. Their experience in democracies stemmed from two things –- from the self- governing Jewish autonomy in Palestine under the British mandate [indiscernible] and from the familiarity with the Whitehall in Westminster.

Now, for proportional representation, two elements were for the adoption of proportional representation in the parliamentary method. One was the experience of the Israelis; then, they knew nothing else. All the elections to their autonomous bodies were based on PR or

3 proportional representation. Secondly, the UN partition plan which, at that time, at the beginning of the State of Israel, was seen as obligatory provided that in each of the states, the Jewish and the Arab States in Palestine, there should be a proportional representation in order to ensure the representation of the Jewish minority in the Arab State and the Arab minority in the Jewish state.

Very much like other countries which have adopted proportional representation like South Africa in order to protect minorities, not to eliminate the representation of minorities.

So for these two reasons, there was almost a consensus that Israel should be a parliamentary democracy. There was no discussion of a presidential system at all. B, that this parliamentary democracy would be based on the British model except for one crucial thing for the electoral system, that we should continue the proportional representation, the PR system.

Ben-Gurion almost alone warned against this. He was very much influenced by the Anglo-

American experience which he became familiar with, and he saw that because we are dealing with a nation which was just fledgling, was just emerging, and because we are dealing with nation building, we should adopt the Anglo-American system of a two-party system based on the constituency -– one single-member constituency. And for this he fought courageously, but he lost.

His argument is very interesting because this applies now to the present malaise that we are witnessing in Israel. He saw that because Israel was a divided society, because it was so pluralistic and because people came from every conceivable corner of the globe, there should be a system that would force them to unite under the banner of a big party instead of creating their own sectoral, ethnic, or religious parties. He was very much influenced by his not-so-short stay in the United States.

4 So here we have one man against the majority. Eventually, the Ben-Gurion demand to change the electoral system died out. It died out for simple reason -- proportional representation worked. There was a major party, never a majority. Israel has never given a majority to any party, not even to Ben-Gurion. But there was a plurality, a substantial plurality, and they were eager and willing partners to the Labor Party. So up to 1977, even after the Yom Kippur War,

Labor was at the head, was the axis around which you built a coalition and they always picked up a variety of small parties to enable them to get 61 seats in the Knesset.

So there was no big –- there were always discussions of changing the electoral system, but there was no weighty demand to transform it as a matter of national emergency as there is now. In 1977, two things happened. One, which was deemed terribly important, that for the first time since 1948, Labor lost the elections and Mr. Begin became prime minister. This was considered a world-shaking event at that time, but it turned out to be not that important.

The other change was much more important. For the first time, there was no majority.

The Likud had no majority and Mr. Begin could not become prime minister without ushering in the ultra-orthodox parties. [Indiscernible] That was something which people did not notice at that time, did not think was very important, but it changed the politics of the country. Because all of a sudden the swing vote in the Knesset did not belong to one of the Zionist small parties, to a socialist party or to a liberal progressive party, but it belonged to a party which was outside the consensus of Zionism and most of the Israelis.

For the first time, the swing vote belonged to rabbis who did not recognize many aspects of the Israeli ethos. They did not recognize service in the army as part of the civil duty. They did not recognize the anthem. That did not recognize, actually, Zionism as the basis for the State

5 of Israel. So in the beginning, it looked as if this was insignificant. Yes, there were a few -- as usual in Israel, a few give-and-take, a few horse-trading compromises; but it seemed to be okay.

Then gradually, it became apparent that something dramatic had been happening to politics in Israel, that the fate of the prime minister depended on a small group, on a small minority that lay outside the national consensus. And from one election to the other, this thing became even more apparent. That proportional representation produced a paradoxical result as it does in the other countries, not only in Israel. It gives extra power to a small minority that the majority is weak in comparison with the minority, that a party of four or five members of the

Knesset can dictate its will and force the Knesset to concessions which otherwise it would not get.

And this is a fact that since 1977, the ultra orthodox parties have acquired disproportionate both in the Knesset and in the government. And they have prevented the majority of the Knesset from expressing its will. I will just give you two examples. There was a great majority in the Knesset for civil marriage. I estimated between 70 and 80 percent of the

Knesset members are for putting an end to the monopoly of the religious courts on issues of marriage and divorce. And despite that, you cannot have a decision made on -- you cannot pass a law on civil marriage. I have tried a number of times. I always fail because there is always a looming governmental crisis. The religious parties always threatened that they would ditch the present prime minister and vote for –- this is a proponent for the leader of the opposition.

The second example is who is the “Who is a Jew” thing, which always clouds politics in

Israel. There was a great majority in Israel for recognizing a pluralistic concept of what Judaism is all about. That concept is being enforced by the Supreme Court decisions gradually encroaching on the monopoly of the orthodox definition, but it is not accepted by the government

6 or by the Knesset. You cannot hope to pass this amendment of the law despite the fact that you have a great majority who support it.

So this transition in 1977, when the ultra orthodox became the swing vote upon which depended the future of the Israeli government was of crucial importance. And then started this –

- Ben-Gurion had been gone by then, and then started a new thinking about Israel’s political system. At first, there were attempts to change the electoral system back to the Ben-Gurion idea of -- this time, modified idea of multiple-member constituencies, not one single-member, but three or four members in a single constituency. And the borders, in order to prevent gerrymandering, would be drawn by the Supreme Court. And there were many, many attempts to do that, always rejected by the majority of the Knesset. Always rejected.

Male Voice: [Inaudible]

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, I do not think the Supreme Court is neutral, but I think it is conceived by the majority in the Knesset as neutral on the issue of gerrymandering, that it can be trusted not to introduce irrelevant considerations into the drawing of the borders of the different constituencies.

Male Voice: [Inaudible]

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, in Israel, the political malaise is much deeper than in other countries now, to democracies. And the stature of the Supreme Court, though in dispute, is very high in this aspect. And not only that, you have a variety of laws -- I do not want to go into this -

- in which the only solution is to appoint an arbiter, a formal Supreme Court as somebody who will be arbiter of disputes without being afraid that he would be swayed by political considerations. But anyway, this idea of a constituency system fell by the wayside. There was no majority for it.

7 Then there was an attempt to introduce the West German [indiscernible], West German federal system of double votes, one for constituency, a person, direct representative on one for a party list. And this had the advantage that proportional representation retained its overwhelming importance. The Bundestag is divided -- the seats are divided according to proportional representation. So the initiators of this mainly a member of the Knesset [indiscernible] coming from the labor parties thought that he could convince the small parties that they would have an equal chance under the West German system.

That failed, too. And then after a series of such failures, a group of members of the

Knesset, including myself, initiated something totally different - a quasi-presidential system.

Direct elections of the prime minister, which was supposed to remedy the disproportion between the major parties and the small parties. Under this system, each Israeli would have two votes:

One for party list and one for the prime minister, the semi-president.

This system is considered now -- there were three prime ministers elected under this system. The first one was Netanyahu, the second one was Barak, and the third one was Sharon in his first term. This is now generally considered to be a total failure because of a number of reasons. First of all, two out this three were inexperienced politicians. Netanyahu and Barak did not have any knowledge of Israeli politics. They did not know how to operate or to manipulate the system. They did not realize that this new law gave them extra power and continued the same old horse-trading with the small parties.

And so the first impression of the Israelis was, “What have we done? It is the same old story again and again. We are back to square one.” The second thing was more serious. By spreading the vote between two [indiscernible] and one prime minister, there was a growing

8 tendency to vote for small parties. And the Knesset became even more divisive than it was and the big parties lost proportionately more than the small parties.

So finally, especially during the Barak tenure we saw that the Knesset was against the prime minister. We had a divided government. And the Americans are used to this that there is a majority for many years now again after the last elections, that there is a majority in Congress, which is not from the same party as the president.

Israelis are not used to that. They have no tradition of bipartisan -- foreign policy for instance. On the contrary, they have a traditional but very partisan foreign policy and they are not used to the idea that you can contemplate this cooperation between parties. It is total war between parties in the Knesset, and the idea of a bipartisan policy which would enable a prime minister to function with a Knesset which opposes him is not in the Israeli tradition. So the consequence was that this experiment was rescinded after three elections.

There was a return to the old system with one exception, a very important one: That you could not remove a prime minister by a simple vote of non-confidence. You had to remove him by [indiscernible] constructive non-confidence of the sort that you have been in the Federal

Republic of Germany and in Spain, that in order to remove a prime minister you have to get 61 seats for somebody to replace him. It is not enough to say no. You have to say, “What do you suggest?” This was the only mitigating element in the parliamentary [indiscernible] which was now –- had a new lease of life.

Now, because of the –- let us call it the unsuccessful, the success-less war in Lebanon, a new sense of malaise has invaded the Israeli public awareness. The political system is no good and it is a matter of life and death for Israel to replace it with something that functions. And immediately there was this -- the newspapers told the tales of the failures and defects of the

9 Israeli political system. They mentioned the fact that the ministers in certain very important portfolios change every year.

For instance, there were 10 ministers of transport in the last 10 years. The average tenure of a minister of education is two to three years, maximum. No government in recent times has lasted through its tenure of four years.

And finally -- and this was the crushing thing that under the Israeli system, you have to appoint the wrong people for the [cross-talking] portfolios. An example which was given was the minister of defense. But the same thing was said about the [cross-talking]. Yes, and I stand corrected. The example was given to the prime minister [indiscernible] and practically everybody in government was dismissed as unfit to govern. So a new demand for political reform was in the air. It was actually back to the old Ben-Gurion argument: How do we formulate a system for Israel which would function, which would enable it to carry out a national priority policy?

That is the main issue, especially in view dangers now facing Israel and Israeli society.

There were three propositions, one that was tabled by Mr. Lieberman who joined the cabinet recently. And that to move not back to a direct election of a prime minister, but to a proper presidential system.

The second one was to return to the old Ben-Gurion idea of the constituencies. People mentioned three to five member-constituencies throughout the country. Again, the Supreme

Court is an arbiter and the constituency should be joined in such a way that the Arab votes would not be decimated because there is a consensus between Right and Left that there should be an

Arab representation in the Knesset, despite the fact that it is a very radical, very anti-Israeli, occasionally anti-Semitic representation.

10 And the third suggestion was made by a group outside politics, which Mayrav just mentioned, retain the parliamentary democracy and retain proportional representation, but do away with the demand that the prime minister has to gather in 61 seats. If he is the head of the biggest party and some would say provided it gets a certain minimum number of seats, he is automatically prime minister. Without any vote of confidence, he is made ex-officio the prime minister. The Knesset does not use the power to remove him, but only under the existing law of constructive no-confidence.

In other words, the Knesset must gather now under the new proposal 66 members in order to remove him by naming an alternative prime minister. Not an easy thing among Israelis to agree on something like that. And these double amendments are supposed to give what is so lacking in Israel -- effectiveness of government to retain representation that most Israelis would like to –- they do not want their constituency system. They cannot understand it. They regard it this totally foreign to everything which they stand for.

But they all agree, most of them agree that the main problem is the government is not effective; that democracy is always a constant compromise between action and representation, between effectiveness and representation. And by giving these two amendments, these double amendment, we would retain the parliamentary nature of our society and at the same time enable the prime minister to function.

In the wake of this debate, something which I think is interesting for Americans took place again. Again, back to 1948-1949, on the one hand there were the majority of academics who said proportional representation is essential for a country like Israel because of the religious parties, because of the Arab votes, because of the Christian vote, because it is in the nature of

Israelis to work along a proportional representation guidelines. On the other hand, a small

11 minority. [Indiscernible] academics and journalists pointed out again to the American record and compared this American record with the European record with regard to minorities.

This evolved into a totally different subject, the future of multiculturalism, but we will not touch upon this now. But Israeli scholars and journalists point out to the fact while Europe, despite all the declarations, has failed to integrate its minorities and has deep problems with its

Islamic communities, America is in a much better state because it solved everything, and it is in a much better state. And it is said -- it is of course open to discussion and debate -- that this better American record stems from its political system.

Male Voice: Where did you find this American such a good record? I mean, there is one

African-American in the Senate. There is a small number of African-Americans in the House. Is that true? Well, larger and small is in the question of the eye of the beholder, but 39 out of 435 --

?

Amnon Rubinstein: Yes. This was [indiscernible] because proportional representation is better, I agree. But when you compare the States with Europe, France does not have a one single non-white face in the National Assembly. Not one single one. And the French Muslim community feels totally alienated. Well, it was interesting. Just before coming to Washington, I listened to a black station in London and by mere chance I listened to a black station here in

Washington. I do not know it is a [indiscernible] in Maryland.

There was a total difference in tone. American blacks think of themselves as Americans.

You do not find that in France or in Germany or in Holland or in Denmark or in Great Britain.

You do not find it. Not at all. I am not talking about terrorism. I am talking about a sense of belonging. Are you a part of the nation? Are you a part of society? But I do not want to go into the merits of this.

12 But in Israel now for the first time since ’48-’49, this old Ben-Gurion argument has been resuscitated because people say that proportional representation has failed in its main purpose to give equal representation and a sense of nation building which is absent certainly with regard to

Arabs and Jews.

Some people mentioned another thing that under the constituency Anglo-American system, the Nazis would not have gained control over the Weimar Republic. But this, of course, is subject to debate because it is not only the system; it is the nature of the people which is part of the problem. But all I am saying is that all of a sudden we find ourselves back in ’48 and ’49 with regard to the system which is suitable to Israel.

Now, what is my prediction? My prediction is that there is no majority for changing the electoral system. You must realize that the fact that we do not have a constituent assembly, that we do not have a body which gives –- which can write down a constitution is very bad for us because the Knesset is full of self-interested parties, naturally, and people do not vote themselves out of office. Even if you convince the Knesset members that this is the best system for Israel, if it means the death of their party, they will not vote for it.

So I think electoral reform is out. I think presidential reform is also out because of this very palpable failure of the direct elections of the prime minister of the quasi-presidential system. So what remains is amendments and adaptations of the parliamentary system by giving some bonus to the biggest party. Again, even that is not easy to pass, but I believe that public opinion is simply fed up with the present -- with the constant feeling that there is a malaise, that there is a governmental crisis. [Indiscernible] where the government is formed.

That is not the end of the story. That is the beginning of the story. Immediately, the prime minister has to look right and left to ensure his survival. Before even -- he is not given a

13 hundred days. And throughout the duration of each Knesset, there is always the threat which looms over the Knesset that there is an imminent governmental change -- regime change. And that in addition to that the elections can be any day.

This sense of uncertainty affects every ministry and indirectly affects every Israeli citizen. So the sense of this malaise is not to be dismissed as something which is very much part of Israeli daily life. And because [indiscernible] that this present malaise will bring about a minor change in proportional representation which would enable Israel to function slightly better. Thank you.

Meyrav Wurmser: Thank you so much, Professor Rubinstein. I would like to open the floor. Yes, Dave?

Unidentified: I am wondering if there is a malaise within a malaise namely -- it is not only that Israel was created as a proportional government, but also that Israel was created essentially as a socialist state. And in a socialist state, the role of government in society is far greater than, say, in the United States in its first 200 years. And as such, it touches more into the private realm than other governments would. And then as such, control of the government becomes more of an issue of identity; it becomes more of an issue of religion, personal life than in other governments.

So the result in ’77 that you described on some level is not just the result of proportional representation, but also became acclaimed by Arabs, Jews, and others who had these small parties to try the -- or religious Jews and so forth who had these small parties to try to stake a claim in something that touched their personal lives deeply. Whereas in the American system most Americans by and large for the first 200 years did not really -- I mean, deep down did not

14 care that much about who governed in Washington because it did not really touch their lives that deeply. There were moments, but not pervasive.

It is changing in America, but it was not -- and that makes the attachment to proportionality far greater in Israel and more resistant in Israel. So you are really dealing with two levels of problems, I think, not just -- one is the system of government, but, two, the question of the role of government in society.

Amnon Rubinstein: I have to agree with you. But you must remember that since 1977,

Israel has ditched its socialist tradition in many, many ways. In some aspects, it has become more open market and more competitive. Then it is European democracy in many things.

Actually, Israel is undergoing such transformation which are hard to describe. Israel, 20 years ago, is a totally different society. I became in experience in [indiscernible] Minister of

Communication. And my idea was that we should put an end to the monopoly of the state in broadcast.

This was heresy. This was -– Shimon Peres who heard this, said, “No, impossible. You cannot do it in a country like Israel.” I said, “Why can you not do it? Even France is doing it.”

So he said, “No, you cannot do it here. Never. Never.” I said, “No, but in addition did I want private radio stations -- and they want cable television and satellite television. All these seemed like a faraway dream.

Now, try and explain to Israel is that there were no such competitors in the communication. They do not believe you. They do not believe. When we tell ours students what happened in Israel before these big changes, they do not believe us. They do not believe us that we needed special permits to leave the country. So things have changed in this respect. And

I have another qualification.

15 With regard to Arabs and the religious parties, the issue is not one of the market policy or free policy, but the issue is one of the -- what is Israel all about? The essence of Israel. What is the meaning of a Jewish state? What is the meaning of “Jewish” and “Democratic?” The Arab members of the Knesset all reject the idea of a Jewish state and the religious parties say the

Jewish state has only one meaning - the orthodox meaning. So these are two separate issues.

They are removed from the very relevant point that you mentioned.

Meyrav Wurmser: Okay. Ariel?

Ariel Cohen, Heritage Foundation: First of all, it is a real pleasure to have you here as a student of a law school in Israel. Reading your articles of constitutional law was indeed a great experience. I also want to thank you because there were a lot of Israelis before you became the communications minister who needed to wait in line for a long time to get a telephone line provided to their home.

I think when I came to Israel in ’76, it was about three months which was better than

Russia that time, but --

Amnon Rubeinstein: Three months? You were very lucky.

Ariel Cohen: Right. Okay, and of course now –

Amnon Rubeinstein: You must have pulled some strings.

Ariel Cohen: You privatized Bezeq, right? [Cross-talking] That was a great achievement. But I have more [indiscernible] comment or maybe a question. From the three options - the presidential, the expanded constituencies three to five members, and the third option, which I really do not understand, which is a party that does not get a clear majority forms a government regardless of a coalition -- this sounds to me -- maybe I have been in this country for too long, but as a step back in the democracy, because there is no clear democratic or

16 majority expression of political will there and you nominate a guy as a prime minister without a simple majority being unable to topple him or her.

Secondly, why not just raise [Jewish phrase]

Amnon Rubinstein: -- threshold --

Ariel Cohen: The threshold from the current – what, 1.5 percent?

Amnon Rubinstein: Two percent.

Ariel Cohen: -- to something like five or seven and that may consolidate the parliamentary democracy in a way that people will end up with a stronger political system, do you not think?

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, first of all, this threshold, all three options include raising the threshold from two to three. A few of us thought that the example of the new democracies in

Central and Eastern Europe of four to five percent was more [indiscernible]. But even raising the threshold from two to three is very tough. Not easy.

So I do not see Israel as raising it to seven percent. Seven percent would be deemed undemocratic. But your first point is very, very true, that the people who opposed this idea of the prime minister being appointed by the very fact that he leads biggest party, they say, “But this is a step back from a democracy.” But in effect, you cannot rule in Israel without the coalition. You cannot pass anything without the coalition, the Knesset. Even with the coalition you cannot pass anything in the Knesset.

So without the coalition, you do not stand a chance. So you will have to form a coalition of at least 61 members. That is a minimum. Otherwise, you would be chucked out by this constructive vote of [indiscernible] in addition to not being able to pass the laws, but we think --

17 I support this personally. I support this biggest party solution, the third -- the middle road solution. I will tell you why.

I think that he had to form a coalition, but then he will come to the coalition negotiations without being subject to this excessive power [indiscernible] parties. He will be able to negotiate a deal which is reasonable and without being subject -- subservient to an ultimatum by small parties which did not receive the majority, which did not accept a mandate from the people. But because they are the swing vote -- exercise disproportional influence. So I think there is a new balance. We tilted slightly towards the prime minister. Slightly towards the biggest party.

I would add one thing, that this privilege should be given to the head of the biggest party provided it gets a certain minimum number of votes -- 35 seats. You cannot give it to somebody who just has the advantage of being 16 against 14 or something like that. I agree with you; that would pose a danger to democracy. But pure proportional representation, not a minister, not a minister. In European countries, it is not democratic because of this swing vote, because you give a small minority the power to frustrate the will of the majority.

Let me put it bluntly -– to frustrate the will of the majority. Now, in the European case it works because their swing vote belongs to all sorts of middle-of-the-road parties - liberals, peasant parties, Christian parties, parties which do not lie outside the national consensus. But in the recent elections in Germany, Germany was very close to the Israeli syndrome, very close to it. And there was talk in the German press that if the forming government would depend on the formal communists or the Greens that it would have to rethink its is electoral system.

Now, another thing that I would like to point out, proportional representation in its pure form exists now only in two countries -- Holland and Israel. The majority of parliamentary democracies are not PR. There are some tougher solutions. Now, either multiple member

18 constituencies, or a mixed system or, proportional representation mitigated by the German model or the East European model. Pure PR above a certain threshold is very rare. And Holland is also deliberating an electoral change because of that. Because they too, they do not have the problem that Israel has, but they have long periods without governments.

The last time I think the negotiations lasted for nine months, and eventually, it gave birth to the present government. But they also suffer from governmental crises because of proportional representation. In other words, the issue is a universal one. It is not only Israel as against the two-party system of England, of Putin, and America.

It is a basic issue of democracy. How do you compromise? How do you strike a balance between the need to represent different groups and the need to govern a country?

Meyrav Wurmser: Okay. [indiscernible], Dave Pollack, Juliana Pelan, [indiscernible],

Nimrod Rafeli, Haim Weitzman [indiscernible], and if I did not see you just raise your hand again because there are so many of you.

Male Voice: Professor, I am not going to let you off-the-hook that easy on Ariel’s proposal. I am raising proportional -- the threshold. You said that there would be a new job position in Israel if they went from two percent to three percent?

Amnon Rubinstein: No. To five percent. [cross-talking]

Amnon Rubinstein: So I was wrong. Three percent is accepted by the reformers.

Male Voice: Okay. But even five percent, where would this political opposition come from? How could it be expressed except by the very small parties? I certainly am not expert on the Israeli political system. But to me --

Professor Amnon Rubinstein: Nobody is. Nobody is.

19 Male Voice: But it just seems to me that this is a quick and easy way of ameliorating the problem you have right now of very, very small, small parties. I know the Turkish experience where they raised it led to --

Amnon Rubinstein: Ten percent—

Male Voice: -- led to an AKP government, an Islamist government. But again, to raise it to five percent I think you would eliminate a lot of the one or two-member parties in Israel.

Amnon Rubinstein: First of all, I personally would raise the threshold to four percent.

Male Voice: Five percent. I am not giving you [Cross-talking]

Amnon Rubinstein: But it is interesting. Germany opted for five percent under the influence of the occupying allies, but after Germany in the new democracies in Central and

Eastern Europe and Scandinavia they raised it to four percent because they were afraid that five percent would push people outside the political spectrum to, in turn, some sort of underground activities. So I will be contented with four percent.

Why is it difficult? It is difficult because part is in the government now and

[indiscernible] of Mr. Olmert on the verge of losing the representation if it is four percent. That includes the religious parties. So they would make a condition though and say to Mr. Olmert,

“Listen, if you are going to support this, we will leave your cabinet and support an alternative prime minister.” This is exactly the sort of mechanism which I have tried to describe that you are always subject to these demands of the small parties.

Now, if a party gets five percent, it is, quite frankly, it is [indiscernible] that if the threshold will be four percent it would make the threshold because there is self-fulfilling prophecy that if you leave four percent people will be afraid to vote for you and then you do not reach the percentage which you would have otherwise. There are many, many known cases like

20 that in Scandinavia, especially in Sweden. [Indiscernible] In all public opinion polls, 89 percent. But because the voters thought that it may not pass this threshold it did vote for it and eventually did not pass the threshold -- the self-fulfilling prophecy or self-fulfilling anxiety.

So first of all, they would object to it. Secondly, the point is that the malaise in Israel and the crisis in Israel does not stem from the small parties. That is the main thing. The small parties make life difficult in the Knesset and indeed some of the present sessions are totally anarchistic because of that. But the -– totally anarchistic, yes, bordering on madhouse scenes when you have 20 motions of “no confidence” tabled by single-member parties; things like that. But these would not solve the problem.

If you have –- suppose you eliminate all small parties, but you have this constant contest between Right and Left. And suppose power is merged, but you have [indiscernible] big blocks,

Right and Left, and you have a religious party which will always be there, always be there. And we do not want to eliminate the representation of the religious parties, both Jewish and Moslems.

We do not want to eliminate that because it is part of the Israeli democracy, that it is supposed to be a pluralistic, multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. So there will be strong opposition for that.

So I do not think that raising the threshold by itself would cure Israel of its ills.

Meyrav Wurmser: Okay.

Male Voice: Yes, thank you very much for a very interesting presentation. The question that I have is a big one and that is -- I cannot help this. What would any of these reforms do, or how would they solve the fundamental substantive problems that Israel confronts? How would they improve Israel’s foreign or security policy in your view? And how would they support better national integration, I guess, is one of the main issues that you have talked about.

21 On the latter point, I would just comment that despite all the problems in its political system, I think Israel has had actually quite remarkable success in integrating major immigrant populations over the last several generations. But I think maybe that was because the sheer weight of demography made it almost unavoidable to integrate millions [indiscernible] and a million former Soviet Jews pretty quickly. But when you are talking about the ultra-orthodox or the Arabs and citizens of Israel, that the problems are very severe, but the demography is such that it makes it hard to solve.

I mean, they are big enough to be a problem but not big enough to be sort of inevitably part of the political system. So how does any of these reforms get to those issues.

Amnon Rubinstein: Dave, if you are looking for problems to be solved, do not go to

Israel. Israel is a country where problems do not get solved. But I would like to say one thing. I do not think these major reforms would affect the basic dilemmas of Israel’s security problems or its international internal integration problem, except for one thing -- Israel has tremendous achievements in integration. And even when you regard this contest between the Arabs and

Jews, it is amazing that in the last five years where you have had sectarian whites all over Europe and you had famous Danish caricatures -- anti-Islamic and also suspicious things which offend the Islamic population, Israel has avoided that.

There were some very tragic incidents. During the intifada, there was this tragedy where

10 Arabs were shot dead by the police. I do not [indiscernible] I do not disregard it. But generally, there has not been an Israeli in this traumatic year’s sectarian violence, which to me is amazing, an amazing record. And I think that there are all sorts of explanations for that. But I think part of it is the fact that we have proportional representation.

22 Now, the Arabs are there in the Knesset vilifying Israel. That is something which I dislike intensely, but they are there. And the other thing is that the Moslem community has its own religious autonomy. And not many people know it; even in the Knesset building there is one which is designated -- there is a mosque where there are daily prayers. So in other words, this multi-cultural pluralistic nature of Israeli society as expounded by and enhanced by proportional representation did fulfill a very important role.

Now, with regard to integration among the Jewish population, Israel has done great things. But I would like to emphasize that this has got nothing to do with the political system.

Again, except for one thing, that proportional representation gave the Russian Jews who came to

Israel a sense of belonging [indiscernible] representatives.

In addition to the fact that [indiscernible] the 50s and 60s, they have their own everything in Russian. They have their theatre, newspapers, television station, radio stations, what not. But the fact that Mr. Sharansky is there, and now Mr. Lieberman is there - I may dislike his politics, but he is there representing Russian votes -- is very instrumental in integrating or in the sense of belonging of the Russian -- one million Israelis are of Russian origin. Tremendous problems could arise, and they do arise.

But the sense of belonging has been enhanced by Israel’s political system and this is one of the reasons why most scholars, academics, journalists are against moving to a constituency

[indiscernible]. They say the Russians at least for the time being must have their own representation just as the other segments of Israeli society. This is not a subject altogether, but

Israel is a multi-cultural society but not in the European sense and not in the American sense; in its own sense, which I think is a very interesting experiment and totally different from other countries and, on the whole, a great success.

23 Meyrav Wurmser: Juliana?

Juliana Pilon, Institute of World Politics: I have a question about [indiscernible] --

Meyrav Wurmser: Can you talk to the mic?

Juliana Pilon: Oh, of course, sorry. Juliana Pilon with the Institute of World Politics. I have a question about the article that we all have on the new nuclear age and it is not a detraction. It is central, I think, to the discussion. Several people has also brought up earlier the issue of the ethos in Israel. You mentioned, and actually do not address after you mentioned, something that I had at least found extraordinary. Thirty lecturers and professors from Tel Aviv

University signed a petition you yourself call astounding, claiming that it is not Iran that launched the propaganda campaign against Israel in the West. It is not Iran that it is the adventurer. The United States and Israel are to blame.

Amnon Rubinstein: Yes.

Juliana Pilon: This appears and then you sort of leave it there like that, sort of a bomb waiting to explode, no pun whatsoever. Actually, quite seriously, it sounds as if this is symptomatic of a tremendous problem within Israel.

Before I sign off, unless anybody here thinks that I am not interested in the electoral issues, I just have to tell everyone there is a website if you ever wanted to explore anything, everything you wanted to know about electoral issues, it is aceproject.org. Perhaps you are familiar. ACE is the Administration in Cost of Elections project, ACE. I lived and breathed electoral issues for 10 years at the International Foundation for Election Systems.

One reason I do not think it is profitable for us to talk too much more about electoral issues -- and by the way, there are thresholds that can be raised if you have a coalition so that

24 groups -- for example, in order to enhance coalition building. But numbers, ultimately, as they have put it so well, are secondary to the to the issue of what is the fiber of the society.

Amnon Rubinstein: Yes. Well, I would like to say something about the electoral reform. I will refer back to the 30 professors of [indiscernible] universities. I am not alone. I just –- I enjoy bashing them occasionally. I have done it for the last three months constantly.

But let us talk about electoral reform and then I will go to your first issue.

First of all, in most countries, in most democracies, people are unhappy about the electoral system. You see, while Ben-Gurion and his [indiscernible] now long for the British system in Britain, I have not come across anybody who is happy with the system in which the

British prime minister, even if he gets 32 percent of the votes of the popular votes, like Margaret

Thatcher, is a virtual dictator -- can do almost everything, unless he is foolish enough to lose his own party. And he has got unlimited, unbridled power, much more than, I think, the American president or the Israeli prime minister. So people are unhappy with this, and I can find also some

Americans -- I think that I heard these overtones here.

Well, I am happy with the American system. I am happy with the electoral system because there is no perfect system. It is as simple as that. Electoral processes are very complicated and you have to balance advantages against disadvantages. I think that Israeli system is very bad for the country; maybe good for another country. I cannot think of such country, but it maybe good for the country. But it is very bad -- and [indiscernible] and those who justified for the simple reason that we are now in the minority of two with Holland. All other countries have managed to distort wittingly and on purpose for proportionality.

On the issue of this astounding petition of Tel Aviv University professors, first of all I must say that both the president and the provost of Tel Aviv denounced this petition in very

25 strong terms, unusual terms, because in Israel you can say anything about anything; not anyone but anybody. But if you attack so-called academic freedom than you are doomed and then you are slaughtered in the press.

But we have this problem in Israel. It is not a major problem. It is a problem of the academic circus. I’m not [indiscernible] this. I fight by writing articles against them, but it is not a major problem because I remember the days in which the words of academe were full of people supporting Stalin. So what? It is a bit annoying; it is a bit of –- no, there is one aspect.

There is one aspect. Israel’s social sciences which used to be world-leading have sunk into the pit of this mumbo-jumbo, the post-modernist, post-Zionist, post-intelligent -- experts who say nothing. They utter the right terms and they use the word “narratives,” and the anti-

Americans, the anti-Israeli just like their European or American colleagues. Most of them were educated in America, by the way. They grabbed a PhD here in America, but they do not feel that there is a basic difference between mumbo-jumbo in one country and mumbo-jumbo in another country.

Meyrav Wurmser: Bless you. Okay. Chaim, Hillel and Michael Kraft.

Male Voice: -- and I am uncomfortable being known as an Arab Jew. I would like to ask your view about the ethnic politics in Israel. How do they weigh in terms of significance on the political situation in Israel?

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, if you would have asked me 10 or 15 years ago, I would say that the ethnic problem between [indiscernible] and European Israelis is one of the major social problems of the country. But I will not say it now. I would not --

Male Voice: [Inaudible]

26 Amnon Rubinstein: No, no. I do not [indiscernible]. I will not say it now because, first of all, gaps have been closing in Israel [indiscernible] write about it. It is part of the problem.

There is no academic literature on this. But the gaps have been closing down very, very fast in

Israel, not only between European Jews and oriental Jews, but also between Jews and Arabs, a tremendous pace of closing of the gap.

And people do not realize that Christian Arabs in Israel enjoy a much higher standard than the standard Jews of Israel in education and health. And probably in economic terms, we do not have any surge, but there are [indiscernible] between the Muslims and the Jews. But in education and health indicators, the Arab Christians in Israel are on top, higher than the Jews.

Male Voice: What do you mean by health?

Amnon Rubinstein: Health? Child mortality, life expectancy, treatment of diseases like tuberculosis and things like that. They are much better than the Jews. Their child mortality is low by American standards. Life expectancy is the American rate, slightly below the Jews. The

Jews have --especially Jewish men in Israel have a very high life expectancy, higher than that of the American population. But Arab Christians are above that.

Male Voice: {Inaudible]

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, this should have been a challenging subject for a sociologist in

Israel involved in these petitions and these mumbo-jumbo things. So they do not have time to write about Israeli society. I personally think that it is because of the impact of religion on the size of the family. Israel is a fascinating laboratory. Because here you have Arabs with the same ethnic origin, the same philosophy, same language, same schools, same everything. Same rejection of Israel, same strong Arab nationalistic movement -– belief. But there is a non- difference [sounds like] because Christianity [indiscernible] and they are small families.

27 And then I think is the proof of the pudding that size matters. Size of family matters. I would say I am very close to this because as Minister of Education I dealt a lot with this. I would say that nowadays, it is a receding problem because of two things because as I mentioned, gaps are closing down; maybe, not fast enough, but they do.

Second thing, the main gap now in Israel is between the Arabian concentrations in the periphery. In the periphery, both Iraqi Jews and non-Iraqi Jews and Europeans will suffer to the same extent. So the main factor in creating these gaps is not ethnic origin but distance from the metropolitan areas. And the third thing is intermarriage. You ask my students in the IDC: “Are you [indiscernible] or [indiscernible]?” They will not be able to tell you. “My grandmother is

Iraqi. My grandfather comes from Egypt. But my other grandfather-- this one comes from this, this one comes from that.”

And the rate of “intermarriage,” inter-communal marriage is very high in Israel. Nobody knows even how high it is because it has become so prevalent.

Male Voice: It was over 30 percent about five years ago. It is probably higher now.

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, it is estimated now -- it is close to 50 percent.

Male Voice: Twenty or thirty years ago in Israel, when you ask someone where their family was from, wherever, they would tell you a town. If you ask the generation coming up now starting in universities where your -- whatever grandfather [indiscernible] they do not even know. I have had a lot of experience and this is from Arab countries, from the Islamic world, from [indiscernible]. It does not matter. People do not know.

Amnon Rubinstein: People do not know -- unless there is this cult of going back to your roots. You go and visit a country where your grandfather was born.

Male Voice: But these people now who have four countries--

28 Amnon Rubinstein: Yes. They have to [indiscernible]. They have to go to go on a world tour and all that.

Male Voice: But it is also very helpful. Let me explain the high life expectancy among males because males usually die younger, et cetera. The mixture because of so many recessive genes in the Jewish population especially the [indiscernible] population, as they mix with the

[indiscernible], the negative recessive genes get bred out.

Male Voice: In this country 100 years ago, my father [indiscernible] a little cartoon

[indiscernible] two groups which did not communicate. And from that time, our teachers do not know. They do not know what those terms mean.

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, it is good. That is a good thing.

Male Voice: That is why I am not sure this is –- have you looked at the trends in Israel?

There is no question [indiscernible].

Amnon Rubinstein: And you know, there are gaps in Israeli society. You cannot turn a blind eye to that, just as you cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that there are social, ethnic gaps in American society. The best thing is to visit the prison and then go visit a PhD ceremony and you see the gap very--

Male Voice: [Indiscernible] the same. One is intellectual and one [indiscernible].

Meyrav Wurmser: Haim?

Haim: Yes. Sorry for going back to serious issues. The Israeli society is ill, badly. I think we dealt today with part of the symptoms, but Meyrav mentioned in the opening remarks about president. I do not want to go on with the prime minister and the few ministers. A few heads of committees in the Knesset, the civil service commissioner, the chief of the police, and so on and so forth.

29 Meyrav Wurmser: The chief of staff.

Haim: Yes, the chief of staff. Yes.

Amnon Rubinstein: It is much easier to say who is not under investigation.

Male Voice: Yes.

Meyrav Wurmser: Who is not corrupt.

Haim: And I think -- you forgive me that you are one of the few persons in Israel that are both in a position and capability of leading some soul search that will lead to results. And then I come to another issue. There is a gentleman here which I do not agree almost on anything except for one thing, that process matters and Israelis do not understand. Americans do not understand how Israelis do not understand, but Israelis do not understand that process matters.

Now, if I look at the new suggestion for reforms, I do not see a process. I see [indiscernible].

So there is a problem. Prime minister feels that he is unpopular. I do not know why he is, 20 percent approval rate. And he has to do something to appease the masses. So we will bring a new system or a new –- I do not know what. We do not see a process. As you mentioned as others said, we cannot have constitution now. Maybe we lost the opportunity. But maybe we should have some kind of social contract. [Jewish phrase], a social covenant because otherwise, I cannot see how we bridge the gaps not only between Jews and Arabs, seculars and religious, religious and ultra orthodox, our poor and rich, rural and urban, or periphery and center, and so on and so forth.

And if it will not come as a process of having, first of all, a basis, a social contract on which we will have to build the political system, your suggestion, there is no -- referring to the central municipal government in these relations which is terrible. And it is another symptom.

30 And the nepotism in the judicial system is another symptom and the corruption is another symptom. Not in the judicial system; in other systems.

So maybe you and some people like you who are in a position, head of institution that have the personal capability will start a process of healing, of constructing this social contract, social covenant on which we can build on something.

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, I have been in politics for 30 years and the press for 40 years.

Enough is enough. But I agree with you that Israelis do not understand their process means, and that applies also to the judicial process. You have mentioned all these investigations. In other countries, you will not have that. You will not have that. Israel [indiscernible] all the democracies that I know, the attorney general is so powerful. He can put under investigation everybody.

Let me put it quite bluntly: Israel is the only country where the government cannot choose its own attorney general because it was a special commission added by a Supreme Court judge which decided that the government cannot appoint its own attorney general. This was after

Netanyahu tried to appoint an attorney general and he was deemed not fit for this position. He is now a minister of the interior, yes. All right. Yes. Thank you for nothing.

Okay. But on the other hand, the attorney general can choose his government. He can dismiss as he did the minister of justice [indiscernible] and he can also dismiss the prime minister.

Male Voice: How does the attorney general [inaudible]?

Amnon Rubinstein: Sorry?

Male Voice: How is he appointed now?

31 Amnon Rubinstein: A standing committee headed by, of course, the former Supreme

Court judge, whose members come from different walks of life. One of the members of the last commission was Professor [indiscernible] who was here. And they decide who are fit to be attorney generals and the government then has to choose from that list.

Male Voice: Bobby Kennedy would never be --

Amnon Rubinstein: Bobby Kennedy would never pass the [indiscernible] in Israel. This will be scandalous nepotism, corruption and everything, yes. But not only Bobby Kennedy; nobody would be appointed attorney general under -- but the attorney general who is appointed

[indiscernible] is not an elected officer can dismiss the whole government. So here, too, I would like to strengthen your point. Israelis do not realize that the other countries, you have to have a grand jury or a committee magistrate, or in France, [French phrase].

And I agree with you about this process, but in the Knesset, unlike other places, process is very much in the members’ minds. Not only that; the proceedings of the committees are very intensive and very interesting. It is just that they are not published widely enough on the internet site. For instance, this basic law entrenching human rights, personal dignity and liberty had about 50 sessions where experts from all walks of life and all different shapes of opinion appeared before the committee.

And that changed for the direct elections prime minister was accompanied by endless seminars in the Knesset. I do not expect any change to come about without this process taking place in the Knesset. I also agree with you this is not enough. Israel must find a way of establishing some sort of consensus. It is not easy, especially since the Six-Day War, it is not easy.

32 Many Israelis to this day [indiscernible] what happens in Gaza with regard the territories taken [indiscernible] Six-Day War as part not only of the cradle of their civilization and belief, but essential to the security of Israel. Other Israelis think that this is a burden on Israel and endangers its very security.

How do you compromise between the two? [Indiscernible] a religious Jewish belief that there is only one meaning to word “Jew” and that is religious [Jewish terminology]. Other people like me think that there is a national sense of being Jewish without being orthodox. How do you compromise between that? These are major issues. This is not economic policy on which you can compromise. This is not a major -– an issue of a free market as against regulation. This is a basic philosophical issue.

Hillel Fradkin, Hudson Institute: First, I really want to express my appreciation for the

[inaudible] both the account of the history and also the clarity of the various --

Amnon Rubinstein: Thank you.

Male Voice: -- roads that you have gone down or could go down and so far it was really, really very helpful. My question has partially to do with the – so to speak – ancient history in

1976-1977 and recent history. I will take up the latter first. You began by -- or at some point of your talk, referenced to the recent war, the crisis over the war, in a way, the crisis of the question of Israeli leadership as something that has revived all of the concern.

And that reminded me -- and that is a kind of separate -- it seems to me a kind of separate issue, but a perfectly relevant one to the question of what [indiscernible] issues. Then most of the ones that you referenced -- the question is what kind of leadership does your political system produce especially for a country like Israel, which, unfortunately, requires at certain times not really competent, but distinguished leadership?

33 That reminded me that it seems to me that that was an argument for electoral reform already 30 years ago. At the time it happened I spent the year of ’76-’77 in Israel, was happy to see the victory of your party. But in the run-up to that, I remember arguments, whether you made them or other people made them, that already the problem was that to succeed in Israeli politics, you either had to be a party hack or a general and if there was --

Amnon Rubinstein: Or insane.

Hillel Fradkin: Or insane, yes. And that there was somehow no middle ground because of the other way in which the electoral system worked. And that seemed to me a fairly powerful argument, then. It was somewhat mitigated by the fact that so many people in Israeli politics in a way predated the state. But now, 30 years later that demographically [indiscernible]. And this most recent war and crisis seem to in a way bring that again to the fore.

So I wonder really whether -- at the time, I think -- I do not remember if you specifically made the argument, but other people did that the constituency system was necessary in order to permit some kind of means for which individual talent could come to the fore in Israel that did not depend simply on military distinction. I just wonder whether, given what happened over the summer and the doubts in the Israeli public about whether it is competently led, that it is not a powerful argument again.

Amnon Rubinstein: Yes. Well, it is one of the most powerful arguments. In Israel like in other democracies, there is a flight from politics. There is a massive flight from -– and a brain drain, too. Young Israelis do not want to go to politics and they do not want to go to public service. They are afraid of the press, afraid of the courts, afraid of being investigated by the police, and they do not want to be involved in this. They go to industry and they go to the academic institutions or they go abroad, but they do not go into politics.

34 And that is a bad thing. And not only that; 20-30 years ago, when [indiscernible] there were was one [indiscernible] which was always ready to serve in politics, and that was the kibbutzniks. That is gone too. They do not want to go into politics. They want to be hi-tech

[indiscernible] and stuff like that but not going to politics. And one of the reasons why we want electoral reform is this thing. Not a constituent system to -- will encourage your local talent, let us call it this way. But we thought at the time that the primary system, which the major parties introduced would serve the same purpose; it did not.

But now there is the idea in addition to what I mentioned is an idea that the party lists should not be conclusive. In other words, that the voters would be able to change it as they do in

Holland and Denmark, I think, by striking out the names or re-ordering the list. But I agree with you. This is one of the major problems that Israel faces. Even without facing the existential problems we need top leadership and we do not get it.

Israel is very good on many things. They have very high ratings in many spheres and they are inventive and initiative and the --

Male Voice: [indiscernible] right here in this [indiscernible] negates everything you have just said [indiscernible]. Not what he has to say, but who he is.

Amnon Rubinstein: Yes. It was from the Israeli embassy. [Indiscernible] I was the

Minister of Energy, one of the most important ministries in Israel, controlling the major -- electricity, or everything. I could not find easily a director-general for that because all the people that I wanted said, “Listen, I have enough troubles without this. My wife would object to this because my name will be in the newspapers and then they would start some of sort query about my way of life.” These investigations –-

Male Voice: [indiscernible]

35 Amnon Rubinstein: Yes. By the way, these massive investigations [indiscernible] by the attorney general have been catastrophic for democracy in Israel. All of Israel’s [indiscernible] prime ministers in the last 20 years have been subject to investigation by the police and have been examined under caution -- what we call “under caution.” I do not know why they use this expression. They were cautioned by the police that everything they can say will be used against them. All of them.

Nothing came out of this but the damage was catastrophic. And this is why I have my oral argument not only with the politicians in Israel, but also with the legal system in Israel and the Supreme Court of Israel that does not realize that this sort of attitude, which I call –- pardon the expression –- “Jesuit” is catastrophic for Israel democracy.

Meyrav Wurmser: Michael [indiscernible], and then last question [indiscernible].

Michael: Professor, thank you very much especially for the historic background. I have several questions on different aspect. First of all, I must say I fully agree with your comments about the British parliament system. I covered parliament in my younger days and

[indiscernible] whip and party discipline. A prime minister can force almost anything through and there is really no system of checks or balances. And frankly, I think our House of

Representatives have gone that way until very recently. This may not be a place to say it, but

[indiscernible] a lot of problems.

Couple of questions; there is some discussion of [indiscernible] element. To what extent is the emergence of these [indiscernible] politicians into the major parties have any effect on either slowing down or speeding up a fragmentation? For example, [indiscernible], who is a major significant party -– I recall they kind of faded away. Do you think the existence of the

36 Russian or new parties will last long or will that tend to fade away with time and perhaps better integration?

On the budget side, one of the things that religious parties seem to want, at least from my reading, was money for their yeshivas and [indiscernible] the social services. To what extent did that distort the budget in the overall national system? New Zealand made a mistake of following Israel to some extent in proportional representation -- some similar thing that happened there with the Maoris.

And then finally, you mentioned the problems in getting a director general. Under sub- parliamentary systems like Britain and Australia and New Zealand, when there is a change of minister at top, it does not go buried down deep. Here in our system it goes down to deputy assistant secretaries, a lot of political appointees. In the UK and elsewhere, maybe only the principal secretary or one or two officials. How [indiscernible] is your civil [indiscernible] secretary. To what extent is the permanent civil service carrying on pretty much without -- despite the change of ministers every year or two?

Amnon Rubinstein: Well, the fact that the politicians from all ethnic groups is very, very important for the sense of integration in Israel, the fact that the president and the former chief of staff and minister of defense -- and now the minister of defense come from non-European communities is of tremendous importance for the sense [indiscernible] in Israel society. It is not the major thing.

The major thing is the social economic gap. But that helps to instill a sense of belonging of the coalition. So it is very important. [Indiscernible] is a permanent feature of Israeli politics, unlike the Russians, and I want to explain why. Russians see themselves as potential foreign citizens of Israel in every sense of the word.

37 Not only that, they feel in many respects that they represent the superior culture, that they are more -- they are more represented in classical music than the old-time Israelis. Not true, not true. But this is the legend. Okay, let it stay there. The Russians feel that they need a representation for times of transition until they become fully emancipated. They want to be generals. They want to be director generals. They want to be CEOs. They are not content with anything less.

And this is very much like the German Jews who came to Palestine in the ‘30s and ‘40s

[indiscernible]. They felt that they were as good as the old Israelis, if not better, but they are being deprived of their rightful place in society. This is a traditional stage and this will disappear. I have no doubt about it. This will disappear.

The absorption of the Russian immigration is a great success story, which is a hidden secret. Israel is very good at secrets. In other words, nothing is secret, except for the thing that should be public. And this should be public knowledge, but it is an amazing story. And because of that [indiscernible] politics is a traditional thing which will fade away. [Indiscernible] is something else. [Indiscernible] represents deeply rooted sense of deprivation that because of their origin and religion, they are not being treated and have no chance of being treated equally unless they organize in a separate entity.

Now, you must realize that [indiscernible] was born out of a sense of deprivation and against the religious establishment, against the ultra-orthodox establishment, which would not accept them as equal in their yeshivas. This is something totally different from the Russians and they have their well-founded allegations against the [indiscernible] orthodox establishment. So I think [indiscernible] is there to stay. And [indiscernible] is different from the European ultra- orthodox.

38 For instance, I can tell you as minister of education, there was no problem with

[indiscernible] in introducing computers or [indiscernible] to their curriculum. They were ready to absorb this and they were ready to take in this, provided the teachers were ultra orthodox. But the European ultra-orthodox with [indiscernible] they would not hear about this. You do not introduce anything which may bring down the walls of the ghetto, of the self-imposed ghetto of this community.

So I think [indiscernible] is there to stay; the Russians are not. Budget -- well, one of the problems with the religious parties, with the orthodox parties, is the influence not only in the budget, but on something much more of crucial importance, of destructive impact on Israeli society. Israel is the only country where parties have their own education system.

Now, this is disastrous. Simply disastrous. [Indiscernible] has its own educational stream. The [indiscernible] have their own. The National Religious Party is the champion of the national religious state system. Now, I believe that religious Jews have the constitutional right to educate their children in their own ways. And I also believe, unlike America and unlike France, that they are entitled to state help like Holland and other countries. I believe in that. Not full state help, but partial state help; provided they have a core curriculum, something in common with other Israelis.

This is the recommendation of a special committee and commission headed by Shlomo

[indiscernible], called the [indiscernible] Report, which is very interesting. Of course, not being applied by the government, needless to say, but it makes interesting reading. But the fact that schools belong to parties in the Knesset is a horrid feature of Israeli political life, and that should be abolished. And that is part of -- this is one of the results of this disproportioned power of

39 small parties that when Begin took [indiscernible] into the Cabinet, [indiscernible] said, “Listen.

[Audio glitch] three things.”

And one of them was “Pay our schools the same amount of money as you pay the state schools.” And he gave him. Without this he did not have a government, and that fact ruined the educational system in Israel.

Male Voice: [Indiscernible] it is a good in Israel?

Amnon Rubinstein: No.

Male Voice: [Indiscernible] it is good.

Amnon Rubinstein: No, I did not say that. No, no. But I did not say that. It has its achievements. In certain spheres, it is even a leader. But on the whole it is not good.

Male Voice: And you think that was caused by the religious [indiscernible]?

Amnon Rubinstein: No, I do not think it was caused. It was exacerbated. The difference

-- the fact that there was no equal budgetary of treatment of different streams had a terrible impact on the morale of teachers and school administrators and headmasters that the same school got to same amount of money for a class of 10 pupils and a class of 40 pupils. This had a devastating impact on the teaching profession. I am not saying -- but do not -- do not tease me.

If I start talking about education, you will have to stay here for another two hours. Okay.

Male Voice: Thank you. First, a complement. I came to Israel in ’96 and my goal when

I came was I said I want to find ten Israelis who are democrats with a small “D.” I am up to four. You are one of the four. It has been 10 years I found four. The Hudson has found another one that they invited earlier this year, Ari Shavit, that I would put in my list of democrats. And what I mean by that are people who the process is as important, as Haim said before, as the result.

40 Now, I do not want to in any way –- I do not want in any way marginalize the impact that an electoral system could have. If you would have put Israel’s electoral system on the United

States, this country would be a complete basket case. You would have a Green party. You would have an homosexual party. You would have an anti-homosexual party, pro-abortion party, anti-abortion party. You’d have 30 parties. I think that it is one of the most foolish electoral systems.

I cannot for the life of me understand what it has to do with representation. People can find representation in a big tent. They can be important players in a big tent. And therefore if you move towards a two-party system, I do not believe that you have to sacrifice representation.

A proportional representation system, I think, by and large, creates divisiveness in the society.

But that said, I do not believe that that is the core problem. And I think the example of

England is the best example of that. There is nothing, as you said correctly -- in my view, there is nothing to stop the prime minister of England of doing whatever he wants to do except for one thing - the norms in England. Now, Americans walk around and they say, “We have a Bill of

Rights and this protects us.” Well, England does not have a Bill of Rights and they are protected in a way that even Americans are not from extremism in government because of the cultural norms.

So what concerns me is that I do not really believe the problem in Israel -- as difficult as this whole electoral system is, I believe that the problem is the norms, that when people do not respect process, they do not pay any price for it. And I will give you two examples, and it is regardless of whether you are on the Left or the Right because I actually do not believe that there are more -- there is, like, two. I got two on each side right now of the four; two of them on the

41 right, two of them on the left. But it seems to me that the focus in Israel is [Jewish terminology] what the result will be.

The process is completely irrelevant. Two examples; one would be Oslo where you had a major, major decision that affect the fate of the country that went on the narrowest majorities.

The idea that that would happen is almost inconceivable to an American, that a major decision that [indiscernible] affect it where in the United States you would have to probably pass a constitutional amendment to do something that would require huge [indiscernible]. This was not deemed to be important.

The second example I would give you recently regardless of -- I know that historically your view towards an idea like disengagement. But look, you had a prime minister who ran on a completely different platform and flipped it. Now, legally, he had the right to do what he did.

He had the votes in the Knesset. But in terms of public legitimacy, there was no legitimacy for that decision. Now, then he understood the problem. He goes to the Likud party. He goes to the

Likud party to get legitimacy. He loses.

Then the question is what happens next? Well, in a country where the norms are deep the prime minister simply could not go ahead without a new election. Now, he could have gone to a general referendum. He could have said. “The Likud party has spoken. I am going to take my case to the public.” But nobody in Israel spoke out because they either decided, “I am either for the disengagement or I am against the disengagement. Now, if I am for in this engagement, I can overlook everything in order to get the result.”

At the end of the day, what happens is the result ends up however the result is going to end up. But you have destroyed the process. And therefore, those people who raise the banner

42 of democracy in Israel today have no credibility to talk about democratic norms today. That is what I think the danger that you have in Israel.

We talked about the Supreme Court as an institution. I think in the last 10 years, the credibility of the Supreme Court has taken a nosedive in Israel. People do not feel that they represent some underlying consensus. They believe they represent a very narrow group and there could be a guy with a kipa or a guy with a different color of face who is sitting there. But they have to agree on jurisprudence. It is sort of a lot of different colors of the exact same thing.

And I think that has an important effect and I would try to think about ways where Israelis, as

Haim said before, will take a stand about defending the norms even when it is against -- or this guy is going to advance your particular point of view.

And the last, last comment, just a specific suggestion. Actually, the law of unintended consequences is very interesting. I cannot, for the life of me, understand -- and maybe you can answer this -- how people thought that if you had a two-ballot system that the parties were not going to implode. Because everyone could to the polls and say, “Yes, I voted for Likud and I voted for [indiscernible]. I voted for BB and I voted for [indiscernible].” So I did not understand how they [indiscernible].

I would argue very interestingly this idea of having the largest party become the prime minister can create a two-party system in Israel because I will tell as a political strategist exactly what will happen. The situation right now is that everybody focuses on the coalition. If you make the prime minister the head of a larger party, they will vacuum up the smaller parties in order to be the prime minister.

So you can actually get rid of a few of them just by having that ballot. My suggestion in order to do it -- if you remember how Sharon changed the system, he changed it immediately

43 when he formed the government. He just got 63 percent of the vote. He told [indiscernible],

“You are going to sign into this or else you are not going to get into government.” If you do it during an election at the beginning and you get the major parties to all sign on and this is going to be a condition of joining the government, that seems to be the only moment that you have to actually pass the reform. If you lose that moment, it is going to be this scandal or that scandal or something else.

Anyway, that is the rant for today.

Amnon Rubinstein: I agree with you. [Indiscernible] I was for the referendum on the disengagement despite the fact that I belonged to another camp [indiscernible]. In fact

[indiscernible].

Meyrav Wurmser: Professor Rubinstein, thank you so much. This was both informative and a lot of fun. All of you, thanks for coming and we will see you next time.

[End of file]

[End of transcript]

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