Useful Notes / Israeli Political System

Please, keep discussion about the Arab-Israeli Conflict at the appropriate Useful Notes page.

Israel is a unitary parliamentary republic self-defined as a Jewish and Democratic state. As a former British mandate, Israel's political system is based on the Westminster parliamentary system (used in Canada, Australia, and Britain itself) with a distinctly Continental European flair thanks to being a former part of the Ottoman Empire, the fact most of the founding generation made Aliyah from the Russian Empire and The Weimar Republic, and the peculiarities of the pre-state Yishuv organs.

Institutions

The Constitution

Unlike many other nations, but like Britain and New Zealand, Israel has an uncodified Constitution, which isn't written down in a single document. Initially, having one was planned and a Constituent Assembly was elected to draft one in 1949; however, Ben-Gurion opted against having one, both to appease his religious coalition partners (who were opposed to a "secular" supreme law instead of the Torah) and to not constrain his own authority.

As an alternative, a series of Basic Laws was written, each of them dealing with a different aspect of government and the people's rights, and these would all be consolidated into a final Constitution sometime in the unspecified future. These basic laws, together with the Declaration of Independence, form the Israeli small-c constitution.

A side effect of this odd situation is that, technically, the capital-c Constitution is still a work in progress – while the parts dealing with government organizations are 90 percent finished, the Bill of Rights is very barebones and embryonic. This also means that the Basic laws are ridiculously easy to amend, since every Knesset is a Constituent Assembly that changes how the future Constitution will look like at the starting point, instead of a "regular" Parliament that only retrospectively amends the Constitution it works under.

However, unlike Britain and New Zealand, laws made by the Knesset are still subject to judicial review (in other words, the Supreme Court can strike down unconstitutional laws). This power doesn't come from the Basic Laws, but from the 1995 United Mizrahi Bank Ltd. v. Migdal Cooperative Village ruling, that essentially stated that ordinary laws are subject to the small-c constitution even though there's no capital-c Constitution yet^note The Constitution doesn't explicitly spell out that laws are subject to judicial review in the United States either – Marbury v. Madison, anyone?. However, the first time the Israeli Supreme Court ever struck down a law as unconstitutional was in the 1969 Aaron A. Bergman v. Minister of Finance and State Comptroller ruling^note Though the Bergman case is a bit muddy, since the law struck down was found to violate one of the few clauses of the Basic law that does require a supermajority to amend without being passed by that supermajority itself.

The basic laws passed so far are:

• Basic Law: The Knesset (1958)
• Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960)
• Basic Law: The President of the State (1964)
• Basic Law: The State Economy (1975)
• Basic Law: The Military (1976)
• Basic Law: Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel (1980)
• Basic Law: The Judiciary (1984)
• Basic Law: The State Comptroller (1988)
• Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty (1992): The first half of the Israeli Bill of Rights.
• Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1994^note a previous version was passed in 1992): The second half of the Israeli Bill of Rights, which protects "the right to engage in any occupation, profession, or trade". The 1994 version had a Notwithstanding clause added simply to ensure laws banning pork imports won't be unconstitutional.
• Basic Law: The Government (2001^note previous versions were passed in 1968 and 1992)
• Basic Law: Referendum (2014): It doesn't regulate referendums generally, but only says that Israeli territories^note Israel within the Green Line plus East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, but not the West Bank or the Gaza Strip can't be ceded to another country unless the cession is approved either in a referendum or by a 2/3rds majority in the Knesset.^note Annexing new territories into Israel proper isn't subject to these supermajorities – so for all intents and purposes, any peace agreement with the Palestinians – which nine times out of ten involves mutual land swaps and/or dividing Jerusalem between Israel and Palestine – would require a referendum, while Israel would keep having a carte blanche to annex West Bank settlement blocs.
• Basic Law: Israel, the Nation-State of the Jewish People (2018): Controversially declared that only Jews have the right to national self-determination in Israel, alienating not only the Palestinian citizens of Israel (who obviously often identify with the Palestinian side of the Arab-Israeli conflict) but also the Druze (a heavily-integrated model minority who consider themselves parties to a "covenant of blood" with the Jewish majority). What many people don't know that it's a verbatim copy of a draft Constitution written by a far-right NGO.

The Presidency

The President is the ceremonial figurehead head of state, chosen by the Knesset for seven years. Presidential powers are limited, even by the standards of parliamentary systems. All they amount to in practice is:

• The President can pardon criminals on their own (as opposed to exercising their pardon powers only when the Government orders to, like certain other Westminster system heads of state one could mention).
• The President hosts the coalition negotiations for forming the government.
• If the Prime Minister has lost their majority in the Knesset, they may request a dissolution of the Knesset, which the President could refuse to grant.^note This power has never been used, as all dissolutions have happened either by the Knesset dissolving itself or the budget not being passed in time.

The Knesset

The unicameral legislature, the Knesset^note Named after the Great Assembly of Biblical times, that has little else in common with the modern Knesset apart from the number of members, has 120 members, all elected by a system of nationwide, closed-list proportional representation. This means voters cast their ballots for parties rather than individual candidates, and each party's share of the national popular vote determines its share of seats in the Knesset. These seats are filled by candidates named in a list selected beforehand by the party they're assigned to^note The methods each party uses to prepare its list vary widely, and range from "primaries among the party members" (Labor) to "handpicked by an unelected council of Rabbis" (Shas and UTJ)..

Elections are supposed to happen every four years on the Jewish month of Cheshvan, which maps up to late October-early November in the Gregorian. Because this rule applies by calendar years, this means a Knesset's term can run up to five years - if it's elected on a December or a January^note the closest Knesset to reach the absolute maximum was the 19th, elected on January 2013 for a term that was supposed to end on October 2017, but it was eventually dissolved on 2015..

For a bill to become law, it must pass by a simple majority in three readings.

The bill, having been drawn up by a government Minister or backbencher MK^note bills presented by ministers get to this stage straight away, but bills presented by non-government MKs have to pass a preliminary vote, after which they'll be scrutinized by a committee before getting here. Confused yet?, is presented to the Knesset for a vote, which is called the first reading, where the Knesset can debate the bill but only accept or reject it as a whole. If it passes the first reading, it goes to a committee to get scrutinized and analyzed, and potentially reworded^note the committee has a very wide authority to reword bills, up to the point of merging several bills that all deal with the same thing into one.

After passing the committee, the bill goes back before the Knesset floor for a second reading, where the Knesset goes through debating and voting on it. This time, the bill can be potentially reworded - first, MKs and Ministers submit their proposed rewordings, and the Knesset votes on accepting or rejecting each. After all of these votes are taken, the Knesset votes on each section of the bill separately. Once the second reading is finished, the Knesset immediately moves to the third and final reading, where it can only vote on accepting or rejecting the bill as a package deal without debate.

Once the bill is passed, it becomes law automatically; although the President has to sign bills passed by the Knesset, he has no veto power, and refusal to sign does nothing.

The Government

The Judiciary

There are secular courts and religious courts. The religious courts are a holdover from the Ottoman "millet" system, where each religious community has its own religious courts. This means that there is no secular marriage in Israel, and by extension no interfaith or same-sex marriage, since all the religious authorities are conservative.

Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president, but the pool of names is selected by the Judicial Selection Committee, a 9-member board of 3 Supreme Court justices (including the president of the court), the Minister of Justice, one other minister, two Knesset members, and two members of the Israel Bar Association.

In 2023, the far-right government proposed reforming the judiciary, leading to massive protests across the political spectrum.

The State Comptroller

Local Government

There are several types of populated places in Israel: Cities, towns, villages, community settlements, moshavim, and kibbutzim.

History

1948-1977: Left-wing domination

1977-1996: The "Soft" two-party system

In 1977, the right-wing, led by the Likud party, won a plurality of seats for the first time. Part of its success was due to the demographic shift from an Ashkenazi majority to a slight Mizrahi majority among the Jewish population. The largely Ashkenazi left wing had failed to court the Mizrahi vote, both due to discrimination and cultural differences. Many Mizrahim were more religious and/or conservative, and less likely to support reconciliation with Arabs due to their experiences with Arab persecution in the countries they fled. Other factors include the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and government corruption.

1996-: Direct elections and beyond

Parties

Mainstream Parties

The Mainstream parties don't represent any particular sectoral interest and fit in (mostly)^note Christian Democracy doesn't exactly fit in a country where Jews form 75% of the population neatly in the Standard European Political Landscape. From (roughly) right to left, these are:

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• Otzma Yehudit^note Jewish Power (עָוצְמָה יְהוּדִית) (Far-right, 6 MKs)
  Current leader: Itamar Ben-Gvir
  Election symbol:

• Religious Zionist Party (הציונות הדתית) (Far-right, 7 MKs.)
  Current leader: Bezalel Smotrich
  Election symbol: ט

• Likud (הליכוד) (Center-right, 30 MKs.)
  Current leader: Benjamin Netanyahu.
  Election symbol: מחל^note חל טעם in 1973

• Yisrael Beiteinu (יִשְׂרָאֵל בֵּיתֵנוּ) (Center-right, 6 MKs)
  Current leader: Avigdor Lieberman
  Election symbol: ל‎

• National Unity Party (המחנה הממלכתי) (Center-right, 12 MKs)^note Coalition between Blue and White Israel Resilience Party and New Hope
  Current leader: Benny Gantz
  Election symbol: כן‎

• Yesh Atid (יֵשׁ עָתִיד) (Centrist, secularist, 24 MKs)
  Current leader: Yair Lapid
  Election symbol: פה‎

• Labor Party (הָעֲבוֹדָה) (Left, 4 MKs)
  Current leader: Merav Michaeli
  Election symbol: אמת‎

• Meretz (מֶרֶצ) (Left, 0 MKs)
  Current leader: Zehava Gal-On
  Election symbol: מרצ

Sectoral Parties

Haredi Sector

• United Torah Judaism (יהדות התורה) (Religious conservatism, 7 MKs)
  Current leader: Moshe Gafni
  Election symbol: ג‎

• Shas (ש״ס) (Religious conservatism, Sephardi interests, 11 MKs)
  Current leader: Aryeh Deri
  Election symbol: שס‎

Arab Sector

• United Arab List (Islamist, 5 [MKs])
  Current leader: Mansour Abbas
  Election symbol: עם‎

• Hadash-Ta'al (Communist, Arab secularist, 5 MKs)
  Current leader: Ayman Odeh
  Election symbol: ום‎

Historical Parties

• Ale Yarok

A single-issue party whose platform was legalizing marijuana.