Transforming israeli democracy under stress

This chapter presents an analysis of Israeli democracy, its political institutions and their shortcomings, and proposals for electoral reform. An understanding of Israeli democracy requires a review of events in the pre-state period. It was during the late 19th century in Eastern Europe that a Zionist movement evolved to establish a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine. Under Ottoman and later British authority, which allowed a significant degree of communal self rule, the Zionist enterprise developed an infrastructure for the future Jewish state. On November 29,1947, the United Nations (UN) partitioned Palestine; a UN resolution called for the establishment of separate independent Jewish and Arab states and the internationalization of Jerusalem. Consensus was lacking as religious Jews opposed adopting a constitution not based on Jewish religious law. Israel is a representative “indirect democracy in which the people do not themselves govern but elect representatives who govern them”.