Representation in Democracy (Electoral Draft Law of 2nd April 2008)

The Electoral Draft Law in the Knesset

1. Following on from the President’s Commission’s Final Report, and after much deliberation and lobbying, on 2nd April 2008 four senior MKs from the three big parties in the Knesset tabled a Draft Law (“Draft”) which embodied the main principles of TR – with some modifications.

2. These four MKs were: Professor Menachem Ben-Sasson of Kadima, Chairman of the Law and Constitution Committee; Mr Ophir Pines Paz, an ex-minister and current Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee; Mr Eitan Cabel , another ex-minister and current Chairman of the Labour Party in the Knesset (both Labour); and Mr Gideon Saar, Chairman of the Likud Party in the Knesset. Together, these three parties have 60 out of the 120 members of the Knesset. Surprisingly the Electoral Law in Israel is not a Basic Law. However to secure the passage of changes in it, the votes of 61 MKs are needed although only a simple majority and not an absolute majority is necessary. So these three parties need the support of all their own members – by no means a foregone conclusion – and therefore they need the support of at least one other party. And of course it also needs to surmount the opposition of the partners of the ruling Coalition Government, currently mainly the Shas Party.

3. The most important improvement in the draft is the rejection of multi-member constituencies in favour of single-member ones. This is an improvement on the President’s Final Report and a leap forward for TR (Total Representation) Otherwise, the Draft Law follows the Final Report in offering a 60/60 mix of constituency CMKs and party PMKs. In this and a few other details it has somewhat deviated from the basic principles of TR. The following is a summary of these deviations. I will analyse them one by one, looking at the rationale behind them and at how to overcome them in order to confer the full benefits of TR on the new law.

Ratio of 60/60 Constituency/Party Membership of the Knesset
4. In this, the Draft follows the Report. On the face of it, it looks symmetrical and reasonable. The real motive behind this, however, is rather different – although of course it is not plainly expressed. Today, most of Israeli candidates and the order of their appearances in the Election Lists for the general election are determined by the leadership and/or by the central organs of each party. They are in fact appointed by them and not elected. And even where primaries are held by some parties to elect candidates these primaries are mostly manipulated and in fact corrupt and lead to the choosing of candidates who are beholden to the leadership and are unrepresentative of the supporters of those parties in the country at large. It is natural that MKs who have been selected in this way (and who are the same people that will have to vote the Draft law on its journey towards ratification) are afraid that most of them will lose their seats under a new election regime. In a matter of fact, their declared support for any change towards regional and therefore accountable seats in the Knesset is not derived from good will or sound judgement, but because of pressure from the public.
We know that turkeys do not vote for Christmas. So these people hope that the 60 regional CMK seats will be a sop to satisfy the public demand for regional reform, while giving enough space through the other 60 party seats for most of them to manoeuvre their way back to the exclusive club that the Knesset provides them with.

5. There is another compelling reason why the present MKs want to preserve at least 60 Party seats to safeguard their immediate future survival. The majority of the present MKs reside in Tel Aviv and its surrounding areas. Their natural fear is, of course, that regional candidates from outside this orbit will push them out and slim down their chances of being chosen, particularly if a 90/30 ratio is used. The current Draft Law feeds these fears because it stipulates that candidates need to be residents of their constituencies. But this condition is not necessary and may in fact cause many able potential candidates to shy away from putting their names forward and start disrupting their home life even before their hopeful, but not certain, election. And although some candidates – once elected – may choose to move to their new constituencies or to acquire secondary accommodation there to gain local popularity, this should not be a pre-election condition. Moreover, keeping this condition will psychologically create two types of MKs: one local complete with certified residency and the other national, which of course is not the intention behind the division of 60/60 or the 90/30. Dropping this onerous condition will help allay the fears of the current MKs – and help solve the problem of fixing the ratio between the two.

Counting the Votes
6. Although it is not completely clear from the Draft Law, the assumption is that votes for the candidates and their parties are counted only once, in the first instance to choose the CMKs. Once the CMKs are elected by the votes of the majorities in each constituency, all the remaining votes are aggregated and distributed amongst the parties for choosing their PMKs. Any idea, as some have suggested or the Draft may perhaps implied, of using the votes again in their entirety to choose the PMKs would be tantamount to counting the CMK votes twice. In the case of Israel, such double utilisation of votes could give a huge advantage to the Arab and Jewish Religious Haredi because of their concentration in some localities. It could turn out to be that these minority parties would be given two bites of the cherry-once to elect their CMKs and then using these votes again together with what remains to give them PMK seats. Once this idea is excluded, we are left with the simple TR method of sharing and dividing the same votes between the CMKs and the PMKs.

Order of Priority in Party Lists
7. Another pitfall that the Draft needs to rectify is the order of priority of party lists. The most efficient and fair method is that offered by TR. Before the general election, it is natural that each party wants to display its star candidates to attract votes through the canvassing process. Therefore, it needs to put their names at the top of its list to show the public who their prominent and eminent future MKs from amongst its candidates would be. However, once the results of the general election are declared for each constituency, and therefore each successful CMK is declared and named, the original list of each party should be re-shuffled and rearranged in accordance with the number of votes each candidate has scored. The rearrangement of priorities could be made by each party before allocating their share of PMKs. This would provide an incentive for the various candidates to fight for each vote during the election, as that could be crucial in their being prioritised as the chosen PMKs by their parties. However, this procedure desirable as evidently it is may be left for each party to decide for itself, although it might be equally advisable to embody it in the electoral law. Moreover this simple procedure dispenses with pre-election primaries.

8. Retaining, post-election, the order of the candidates on the pre-election List could create anomalies after the election. How?! Let us take an example. Three candidates – A, B and C – from three parties are competing in one constituency. A secured 48 per cent of the votes, B secured 47 per cent and C secured 5 per cent. A won a CMK seat. But if B is, say, numbered 55th in his Party’s List, he will not secure a PMK seat, while C who is, say, numbered 3rd in his Party’s List would probably secure a PMK seat. So the 47 percent candidate lost, and the 5 percent candidate won the right to sit in the next Knesset. A situation like this would reflect badly both on the chosen PMP and his/her party.

9. Another thing that could help the existing MKs to swallow the change to 90/30 is to increase the number of Knesset seats available. The Knesset’s present membership of 120 has remained static for 60 years despite a over 10 fold increase in population. With many MKs continuing in their positions for decades without being replaced, the membership has become stale, and this has contributed to the image of the Knesset as an ancient, exclusive club, closed to and remote from ordinary citizens. Increasing the membership to 160 would facilitate dividing them into a ratio of 120/40 or even 100/60, instead of the proposed 90/30. This move would also make the proposed law more palatable for the present MKs, as it would increase their chances to survive under the new regime. Linking this measure to the appeal of introducing the regional representation of TR would also make it more acceptable to a public that has recently grown dismissive and sceptical of anything connected with the Knesset.

To Secure the Party Leader
10. The order of priority of each party’s candidates list would be declared beforehand, putting the party leader at the top in a reserved slot to ensure his/her place in the Knesset, whatever happens. The reason for this is that in a First-Past-the-Post system, the opposition will throw all its weight behind its candidate in the constituency of the leader of its rival party, in order to defeat him/her and embarrass his/her party. The reserved top spot for the leader also helps avoid upsets and confusion in the aftermath of a general election if the leader fails to win his/her constituency seat which, though unlikely, is of course, possible. Some parties may likewise want to secure the places of their Secretary or Chairman, and their Election Operation Officer, as these two would need to devote their full time to serving the party during the election period and might not be able to attend adequately to canvassing in their respective constituencies. But again, this issue is the business of each party and may not necessarily need to be stipulated by the electoral law.

11. Once the Draft Law takes care of all the above points, the exact ratio of CMKs to PMKs becomes less crucial, and although a ratio of 90/30 is the optimum, a slightly higher proportion of PMKs might be more suitable for Israel’s population make up. However, a ratio of 60/60 will definitely gives the PMKs too much power, and will not serve the purpose of the desired electoral reform, as it will immediately drag the system back into a preponderance of the Proportional Representation element.

Blocking Threshold
12. What is left is the blocking threshold. The Draft suggests that each party has to gain at least 2 per cent of the total votes and to win at least one CMP seat before qualifying to enter the Knesset. These conditions are added to what is inherent in every electoral system. These are grossly unfair measures that affect the minorities as they deny representation to their small parties and groups. It amounts to blocking their way to obtaining support amongst the electorate and is tantamount to disenfranchising them. Such a blatant blocking mechanism increases resentment and nourishes extremism and conflict. And anyway even a 10 percent blocking threshold used in Turkey did not prevent the religious party from getting a majority in the end, and forming a government by entering the leading party and controlling it from within. Of course, having said all that, we should remember that every electoral system has an inherent blocking mechanism – and so has TR. Under a regime of 90/30, to gain one Knesset PMK seat, a party needs 1/30th of the total votes left for allocation to PMKs. This is four per cent of these votes and is even a much higher percentage of the total votes. The way TR is constructed, as explained in Part One, of this book is to obviate both the necessity of blocking thresholds post elections and the reasons for holding primaries before the general elections. And yet it is so simple to explain to the public and so simple to operate.

13. Whether the Draft Law will proceed and overcome all the stages of legislation to become the new electoral law is an open question – it cannot be taken for granted. But the genie is out of the bottle, and it is too big to be squeezed back in. Regional election is in the air and in the public domain. Any political party aspiring to lead in Israel will ignore its call at its peril. Some form of regional /constituency system will have to be introduced primarily to ensure direct accountability of individual MKs to their voters. This after all was the prime reason cited by the President’s Commission. There is no compelling reason why full TR should not be chosen as the model for this fundamental change in order to repair the fractured political structure of Israel and to strengthen the Knesset – it could ultimately help in turn to solve many of the social and security problems of the country.

Supplementary Measures and Regulations
14. The weakness of the political structure in Israel is not entirely due to Proportional Representation (PR). Holland is another country with pure PR, and yet its system functions properly, and has been functioning for centuries, without causing the kind of instability that Israel suffers from. The reason for this difference is that Israel’s population lacks the social cohesion and the long tradition of parliamentary democracy that underpins Dutch politics. The make-up of the Knesset reflects the national religious and cultural divisions of what Haim Ramon, the present Deputy Prime Minister, has described as Israel’s tribalism. And although TR can help enormously in bringing about cohesion and integration, it alone cannot bridge these wide social divisions overnight.

15. Therefore, to ensure stable government and efficient governance, the introduction of any new electoral system needs to be supplemented by structural changes and regulations relating to the internal working of the Knesset and the government. The most important of these changes centres on the cohesion of political factions in the Knesset, and the tenure of the Prime Minister and the manner of his/her appointment and dismissal. Only such supporting regulations can ensure that the Knesset completes its term and that the government will therefore last the full four years. These changes can be incorporated into the electoral law or instituted internally by the Knesset and the political parties. The following are few of these regulations: some are essential; others are optional.

Political Parties in the Knesset
16. Under TR, MKs are allocated seats in the Knesset as members of parties. It is logical therefore to register their allegiances to these parties in the new Knesset. As candidates in the General Election, most of them would anyway have declared their link or loyalty to one party or the other who sponsored them as its candidates in the regions. In general, these allegiances need not be 100 per cent binding on them as MKs. Not being delegates, but representatives of their voters, they should have the right to change their views and their votes in the Knesset according to changed circumstances and their conscience. However, for MKs whose party forms part of the government, the situation is different. Some measure is needed to avoid the slow disintegration of the government during the Knesset term, and to prevent changing party allegiances (in Israel called Kalanterism; in Britain is referred to as taking the Party Whip.)
So, I propose that every MK whose party forms part of the government is deemed to have declared allegiance to his party at the time of the vote of confidence in the new government of which that party forms part. Each MK has the choice at that stage to cast his/her vote in favour of forming that government or withhold it. Thereafter, except for free votes declared by their parties (e.g. on conscientious ground), MKs who vote against their government should be deemed to have resigned and would be replaced by the next in line on the party list or through a by-election. In Israel, this needs to be embodied in the parties’ respective constitutions, and together with other regulations specifically on financing parties, may need to be anchored in State Laws. The logic of this measure is obvious. As a Party/List MK (PMK), his/her position is derived from the Party which gave him a seat on its priority list. Therefore if he is voting against the party, it is logical that he should surrender back to the party his position by resigning. If he is an MK representing a Constituency (CMK), then naturally he should resign because he represented himself to his constituents in the general elections as a member of that party and pledged his allegiance by voting for it in the government. By revoking his pledge given free when the government is formed he should resign and offer himself if he so wishes for re-election in a by-election as an independent candidate. This is both decent and logical, but it needs apply only to the party or parties of the coalition and not to all MKs.

Appointment of the Prime Minister
17. At present, the business of forming a government after a general election is too long and tortuous. The initial role of the President is superfluous. Once the results of the general election are announced, the party leader with the highest number of MKs should automatically try to form a government. He should immediately set out along broad lines his party’s or his coalition’s programme and proceed to ask for a vote of confirmation in the Knesset. If he fails to present his government within, say, three weeks, only then the President should intervene and start a procedure to ask another acceptable MK to form a government. Under the new TR system, with a ratio of 90/30, the emerging first party after the general election is bound to have the support of close to half the Knesset. If not, it is still unlikely to need the partnership of more than one other party to form a stable coalition

18. The confirmation of the Prime Minister designate and his government should require a majority of 61 MKs out of 120: an overall, that is an absolute - not a simple – majority (i.e. a 51 per cent of the Knesset, ignoring abstentions or absentees) His dismissal should be effected by the same majority – but only on a specific motion of no confidence in the government. Such a vote would then signal the start of a procedure for the dissolution of the Knesset and the declaration of a new general election. The constructive dismissal of the Prime Minster, as is sometimes suggested, is problematic and creates the very instability in the system that we want to avoid even though it is used in other countries. There are good reasons why, for example in the UK, it is the Prime Minister who chooses the time of dissolution of Parliament during its maximum five years term. That is one of the reasons why the UK premier is more powerful throughout his term – right up until the last day – than the US President, who in the last months of his predetermined time in office is often looked at as a lame duck.

19. The PM should appoint an MK to be Deputy PM. This appointment also needs a parliamentary vote of 61 MKs. The same majority is required for a replacement should the PM decide to replace him/her. Thus with this backing of parliamentary authority, the Deputy can accede without an upheaval to the position of the Prime Minister in case of his death or incapacitation.

20. A constructive vote of no confidence is not practical, and indeed is not necessary, under the above proposition, simply because those MKs who had supported the government will have to resign once they voted against their government. This avoids electing a government and immediately afterwards exposing it to the danger of collapsing. This routine practice has gradually become unacceptable to the public in Israel.

Appointment of Ministers
21. The PM should appoint all ministers and their deputies and should have the power to dismiss and replace them. MKs thus appointed need confirmation by 61 votes, en bloc initially when the government is voted in, or individually if appointed later on. Ministers appointed by the PM from outside the Knesset should be subject, in addition, to a Knesset Committee Hearing followed by confirmation by 61 MKs.

22. The PM is to be free by Law to appoint no more than half of the ministers and deputy ministers from outside the Knesset. They can be dismissed and replaced by him as above. This is designed to bring into the government professionals with experience. In some countries this professionalism is provided by the corps of the civil service. Unless the outside ministers are restricted to no more than half the government, we will be creating a presidential system through the back door.

23. Each ministry must have either the Minister or his/her Deputy as an MK. In cases where a Minister is appointed from outside the Knesset and has no deputy, an MK is appointed by the Minister, with the approval of the Prime Minister, as Knesset Liaison Secretary to represent and answer for the Ministry in the Knesset. This ensures the supremacy of parliament without compromising the authority of the PM or the Ministers.

24. All the above keeps a balance between the Knesset and the government and renders irrelevant the very unusual so called “Norwegian Law” advocated by some in Israel whereby an appointed minister has to resign his seat in parliament and is replaced by a deputy, who in turn has to vacate the position once the minister leaves the ministerial post and returns to parliament. The Norwegian arrangement may suit the circumstances of some other countries but it would be cumbersome in the much wider political and cultural environment of Israel

25. Many ask how the party leaders are elected under the TR System, especially when primaries seem to lose their importance. This question is dealt with in Part One of this book. Basically, each leader of each party except the Prime Minister, is elected or re-elected in the middle of the Knesset term by the candidates of the party in the last election (not by the Party’s MKs, who will naturally not include all the candidates). All these candidates cast the actual votes each obtained in the preceding general election – these are added together in selecting their leader. These votes are those of the real supporters of the party in the last election, and not the votes of paid members who often are recruited for that purpose. The selection becomes clean, with no corrupt practices. The procedures for re-elections of party leaders should be declared in mid term but if no candidate challenges the incumbent leader the re-election is dispensed with as the incumbent becomes automatically re-confirmed.

26. The prime minister need not submit himself to re-selection because he won his mandate by coming top ahead of the other leaders, and thus fulfilled his role and his party’s manifesto, and is therefore entitled to continue his role as leader of his party. This exception also adds to the stability of the government and is normal in other progressive democracies.

Aharon Nathan, 8th July 2008

Representation in Democracy (The President’s Commission on Electoral Reform)

The President of Israel's Commission for Examining the Structure of Government and Governance in Israel

Background
1. On February 17th 2003, at the opening session of the 16th Knesset, the President of Israel, Mr. Moshe Katsav, stated: “I call for the establishment of a Public National Commission consisting of public figures and experts that will discuss and recommend reforms concerning the structure of government.” In this chapter, I try to give a bird’s eye view of the deliberations of this Commission and its final report. The deliberations covered almost every aspect of debates about electoral systems and related fields of governance. The records of the minutes and submissions have been preserved and could be invaluable for future students of this subject.

2. The Citizens’ Empowerment Centre in Israel (CECI), spearheaded the formation of this Commission, and on September 25th 2005, The President’s Commission for Examining the Government and Governance of Israel was established under the Chairmanship of Professor Menachem Megidor, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Upon delivering its mandate, President Moshe Katsav said:
· “I request that you analyse carefully the Israeli government structure, to examine the suitability of every alternative to the Israeli reality and the needs of the country, and to try to create a proposal that will assure increased power, stability, and effectiveness. I intend to submit these proposals to the Knesset and the cabinet.” The President went on to say: “Israeli democracy has, in my view, succeeded through the years to withstand the test of time, despite the many upheavals…the mounting elitism of the power structure can undermine the strength of the democracy more than security threats…
· Power instability can cause more extensive damage to the strength of the democracy. Despite it having withstood the trials of time, I think that power instability also prevents governments from properly fulfilling their tasks. If a recently elected government is immediately threatened by further elections, it is unable to fulfil its task properly…
· I am concerned with the decline of the status of the Knesset -- precisely because I appreciate that it is primary among power structures, and a sovereign authority. For that reason I am much concerned with and regret its negative public image.
· I am also concerned with the fact that the executive authority has almost unlimited power over the legislative branch. It is able to do whatever it wishes with the Knesset, while the Knesset, the legislative branch, has developed an intolerant dependency on the judicial branch. They apply for court ruling for every little thing while such decisions should have been reached in the Knesset itself without this insufferable dependency.
· I know there has been a lot of talk about changing the electoral system and I have my opinion on the subject though I will not voice it here. This issue must be examined versus the consideration and the consequences of such change. The national and state interests must be weighed. The question when, if at all the cultural, sectional and regional interests may be preferred over the national interests must be answered.
· I beseech you to analyse carefully the Israeli government structure to examine the suitability of every alternative to the Israeli reality and the needs of the country to try and create a proposal that will assure increased power stability and effectiveness and to propose a structure that would ensure meeting the challenges which confront the state of Israel in our generation.
· I intend to submit these proposals to the Knesset and the cabinet and for public discussion, and I hope that the Commission’s recommendations will gain the widest possible acceptance”

3. I have quoted the President’s statement at length, as it authoritatively encapsulated the weaknesses of Israel’s political structure that the Commission was given the task of grappling with. After months of deliberations, its final report was handed on 1st January 2007 to the President, who in turn presented it – as he had promised – to the Speaker of the Knesset and the Prime Minister. In the aftermath of the Second Lebanon War, its findings, conclusions and recommendations were becoming more urgent and relevant.

4. To carry weight with the public, such a report had to take a clear-cut and unified approach on the issue of how to bring about an effective and representative Knesset and a stable government. Structural recommendations based on changes to the electoral system and changes in the Knesset and Government needed to be presented in a clear, straightforward package for the public to judge them. I offered the Commission my submission for the electoral reform part of the package. I stressed that I believed that no reform would endure and no system would be accepted by the electorate in Israel unless it was anchored and based on “Single Vote, Single Ballot, Single Constituency”. Explaining the case for TR-Total Representation to the members of the Commission, I put it to them that TR is simply the good old Westminster system which has been functioning successfully for hundreds of years in its native Britain – modified and adapted to the social and political needs of Israel. Its adoption by the Knesset would avoid forays into new, untested grounds which had given rise to the debacle of the direct election of the Prime Minister.

5. Unfortunately, instead of sticking to the guidance of its mandate for clear recommendations, the Commission cast its net so wide that it lost focus in the process. Much time was wasted on reviving the debate about a Presidential versus a Parliamentary System, especially amongst the academic members. This was largely caused by the way the sub-committees were divided. Instead of there being just one committee discussing electoral reform, responsibility for this basic issue was spread between three sub-committees. This was bound to result in divergent views that Commission Chairman Professor Megidor, a clear thinking physicist found hard to reconcile.

6. Whatever its value to students of political science and government, this long and hard-fought debate seemed to me to be irrelevant and unnecessary in the context of the Commission’s terms of reference. In the heat of the battle raging between the sub-committees, the protagonists forgot a fact that they should have understood: the two examples par excellence of the presidential and parliamentary systems – the USA and the UK respectively – both draw on the same theoretical background of John Locke, Montesquieu etc. The essence of both systems is representation of the people, and a government that is subject to checks and balances.

7. The Commission was also sidetracked into trying to find a system that would produce a strong leader, which is what they believed – rightly – the public was clamouring for. But why did they ignore the fact that the powers of the British Prime Minister actually exceed those of the US President? Israel’s Prime Minister lacks power because he/she lacks solid parliamentary backing. Professor Doron, despite his passion for a presidential system for Israel, was aware of the sterility of concentrating on the label rather than the content: he suggested a solution based on a strengthened parliamentary system based on the internal reform of the parties and consolidating their cohesion thus giving more stability to the Knesset and in turn the government. I believe that, irrespective of the recommendations of the Commission, the Doron Solution will be the one that both the public and the Knesset will eventually go for – but only after reform of the electoral system.

8. Another way in which the Commission became sidetracked was in debates on how to reach recommendations that would satisfy and be acceptable to politicians. This was further complicated by some members fighting for their own narrow political affiliation, instead of grappling with the whole spectrum of party political platforms. This was, of course, the wrong approach to the issues, because suddenly we found ourselves seeing things from the point of view of a 3,000-strong political establishment, rather than minding the interests of 3,000,000 voters. It is, after all, these last who will ultimately push for and force the Knesset to legislate for an electoral system that guarantees direct elections of individual members of the Knesset who can be directly held accountable to their constituents. And it was this element of accountability that the President stressed most in his brief. The ultimate outcome of this confusion resulted in the final report missing this cardinal ingredient in its recommendations.

9. From my perspective as a member of the Commission, I had to contend with yet another tug-of-war on electoral reform, between academic advocates who favoured Proportional Representation at all costs, and others who pushed for the regional or constituency principle. And the compositional mix of the membership did not help us converge. The blunt black-and-white views of army ex-generals and the legalistic argumentation of ex-senior judges clashed with the “on-the-one-hand-and-on-the-other” style of the 33 senior professors who were members of the Commission. And all this debate was often conducted in a very theoretical fashion – with less emphasis on what was suitable for the specific conditions of Israel’s society and its population-mix.

10. In the end I managed to get the message across to my colleagues in the Commission that in choosing an electoral system, we should not only aim for the best in theory, but also aim for what was most suitable to answer the basic problems facing Israel today. These problems are: a fragmented Knesset, unstable coalitions, a failure to draw our Jewish tribes together and, above all, to integrate our minorities, Arabs and religious Haredi Jews into the mainstream of our political and social life. We have to contend with the combination of all four problems when reforming the PR system that has sharpened and sustained the divisions in the country. Electoral reform is a powerful systemic tool that can help social convergence in the long run. Such structural systemic change in Israel can only endure if it takes account of all these problems together.

11. For years, the PR system has not only done little to solve the socio-political problems of the country; it has actually helped to sharpen and perpetuate them. In 1948, Israel adopted its present system by default. The Pre-Mandate Jewish Agency needed it to ensure representation for the whole mosaic of ideologies and religious sectarianism that characterised the Jewish people inside and outside Israel. The system played havoc in the post-independence period, and ever since has continued to rot Israeli society and fray the fabric of its politics. The merits of Proportional Representation are not inconsiderable – but in practice it is a system that has been proven to create and sustain instability in government after government. A succession of opinion polls have produced the same answer: people say they want a strong leader. Maybe they yearn for the good old days when, with his towering personality, Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, provided such leadership. But, for all his sterling qualities as a great leader and despite his efforts to play the democratic game, Ben Gurion was and acted as a benevolent dictator in the circumstances of those days – and the country loved it! The world has changed since then, and Israel desperately needs to change too. Today, the PR system is actually weakening the internal cohesion of the country and preventing its government from governing in the national interest. Tinkering around the edges will only make things worse and create a breakdown of the people’s trust in their political institutions. For instance, those who aim at disenfranchising segments of the electorate in order to achieve stability by raising the blocking threshold percentage to five per cent or more, are playing with explosive fire in the segmented Israeli society. It is paradoxical that the very principle of representation in PR needs blocking thresholds which denies representation to the voters who are blocked out.

12. To ensure a stable governments and efficient governance, the introduction of any new electoral system needs to be supplemented by structural changes and regulations relating to the internal working of the Knesset and the government. These are also needed for another reason: to prevent the rejection of the parliamentary system by the people in favour of a narrow, restrictive presidential system. The most important of these changes centres on the cohesion of political factions in the Knesset, and the tenure of the Prime Minister – the manner of his/her appointment and dismissal and his right to appoint some Ministers from outside the Knesset (albeit subject to hearings and confirmation in parliament). However, this series of issues was dealt with by other sub-committees of the Commission; as a result, the crowded agenda of the Commission and its deliberations became even more disjointed, and it made it very difficult for the Chairman to concentrate on the core issue of electoral reform in isolation.

13. The whole purpose of the President’s Commission was to find an alternative to Proportional Representation. My presentation of TR as an alternative provoked many reactions in the Commission, some positive and supportive, others negative and hostile. Zeev Segal, a notable professor of Law at Tel Aviv University, told the Commission that TR represented new thinking because it took care of the losers, which was its innovative approach. Thus he hit on one of the essences of the concept of compensation in TR: i.e allowing the voices of voters who did not manage to win seats for their candidates still to be represented in the final outcome of the election (albeit with lesser weight) – thus bringing all voters by proxy inside the sovereign tent of parliament.

14. Prof Doron, on the centre-left, Mr Yoash Tsidon Chatto, on the centre-right, and Mr Jamal Majadle, a member of the Commission who provided the Israeli Arab perspective, never wavered in their support for TR and kept its caravan on the road throughout. On the other hand, Professor Naomi Chazan, the chairman of a sub-committee, led many members of the Commission in fighting tooth-and-nail for preserving the status quo of pure PR. Belonging to the Meretz Party, a splinter Labour group in the Knesset, it was obvious that her narrow interest in its independent survival took precedence over her better academic judgement. In the end, she lost the battle of ideas and – together with a few of her supporters in the Commission – refused to sign the final report.

15. Professor Kaniel of the Hebrew University sought a solution in some mathematical formula based on De Hondt. He could not be convinced that none of the Commission members, let alone the general public, could fathom its intricacies. Professor Brichta of Haifa University, on the other hand, produced a challenging but clear and readable alternative to TR. He claimed that TR did not accurately translate the results of the elections into seats in the Knesset. He said that Israel was a sectarian and divided society and the new system needed to reflect this pluralism. He further assumed that a reform that took the representation of small parties out of the Knesset could not recruit their present MKs to support TR and would therefore be doomed – or if it succeeded, it would drive them underground, on to the streets and squares outside. But where does Professor Brichta’s point lead him? He could not see that he was in fact negating the very purpose of setting up the Commission. Moreover instead of healing the division in search of unity his proposals sought to perpetuate them.

16. The whole purpose of the President’s Commission was to find an alternative to PR, not to find new tools to confirm its validity. How can the core PR principle of proportionality of votes be changed whilst being preserved? Advocates of adhering to proportionality of votes in order to convert them into seats seem to miss the whole point of correcting PR. What, then, is the use of modifying PR when all they are proposing is to gain on the swings what they are prepared to lose on the roundabouts? I believe that the reason behind their obstinacy is rigid theoretical thinking based on old theories which seek authority in antiquity. But innovations can only come about when the past is studied critically and respected, and used not to obstruct but rather to pave the way for new thinking based on new situations on the ground. With the final report leaning to a great degree to the principles of TR, Professor Brichta too ended up refusing to sign it.

17. It was obvious that Professor Megidor, the Commission Chairman, was torn between the two camps of the TR and PR systems. Shimon Shetreet, Professor of Law and a brilliant biblical scholar, mild in manner and conciliatory in tone, recommended a compromise composite recommendation. Fatigue set in, and the Chairman of the Commission, in his final report on electoral reform, accepted the compromise, which is basically a modified version of TR, but opting for multi-member instead of single-member constituencies. Thus he confirmed the main principle of TR: i.e. to elect the candidate and his/her party with one vote, using one ballot paper. Together with the majority of other members, I signed with alacrity, knowing full well that the next stage – sooner rather than later – would be to fight to change the multi-members constituencies to single-member ones.

18. It is incredible that it escaped those who helped the Chairman to write his conclusions that they missed the central requirement of the President’s brief and the Commission’s own self-imposed guidelines: i.e. to embody the principle of accountability of the MK to his/her constituents. This is what the Chairman stated in his preamble to his report:
The Commission examined several voting systems within the framework of the following principles:
The need to boost the accountability of elected representatives to voters.
The need to foster stability by encouraging the formation of larger political blocs.
The need to maintain a reasonable level of representation, especially for minority groups.

19. Indeed, Professor Gideon Doron asked, in a penetrating commentary published by the Citizens’ Empowerment Centre in Israel (CECI) in the wake of the publication of the Final Report: who in a multi-member constituency (as recommended by the Report) is accountable to his/her constituents in order to hold him/her accountable and therefore punishable in the next election? The answer to this question challenged those members of the Knesset who set out to implement the Commission’s recommendation. Senior MKs representing the three biggest parties – Kadima, Labour and Likud – tabled a Draft Law in the Knesset on 2nd April 2008. It replaced multi-member constituencies with single-member ones, and thus incorporated all the principles of TR. The next chapter is an attempt to correct in time the deficiencies of this Draft which chose a ratio of 60/60 instead of the 90/30 ratio of CMPs and PMPs recommended by TR.

20. The following is the official summary of the Final Report that the tabled draft adopted in parts:
The System of Knesset Elections
The Commission believes that the system of Knesset elections should be changed to encourage the formation of large political blocs and greater accountability to constituents; i.e., giving greater weight to personalities in the electoral process. At the same time, the Commission believes a reasonable degree of representation must be maintained.
To counterbalance these two requirements, the Commission recommends the following changes:
1. Half the number of MKs, (i.e. 60) will be elected from national lists, the current practice.
2. The other 60 MKs will be elected from 17 constituencies as per the (Ministry of the Interior) breakdown into districts and sub-districts; the number of representatives per constituency will vary according to voter population (in practical terms, this means two to five representatives per constituency….
3. To encourage party consolidation, voters will vote in a single ballot for both regional representatives and a national list (In other words, voters will not be able to split their ballots).
4. To correct somewhat the distortions of proportional representation resulting from regional divisions, there will be a compensatory mechanism to transfer party votes “lost” in regional elections to that party’s national list in order to strengthen it. (The proposed mechanism is described in detail in the full report below).
5. To some extent, voters will be able to determine the composition of the national and/or regional list/s by preferential votes (The mechanism of which is elaborated in the full report).
The election threshold will be raised to 2.5% of the valid ballots in national elections or to party victory in at least three separate constituencies in regional elections.

Aharon Nathan, 1st July 2008

Israel Arab Conflict (Judenrhein and the Golan Heights)

1. Judenrhein is land pure and clean of Jews. This is the unrealised dream that Hitler designed for Germany, but which the Arabs fulfilled to the full in their countries. This is the Arab side of the Holocaust, the real tragic “NAQBAH” of the Jews who lived for centuries in Arab countries. Today every nation in Europe tries to apologise for associating themselves with this policy. Not so the Arabs. They are proud of their achievement, which they declare day and night as a matter of religious piety.

2. Stealthily or deliberately they managed to put this abomination into practice. And they find it natural, may be because it is embedded in their history and culture. The concept of Dar Al Islam (land of Muslims) and Dar Al Harb (land of enemies) is believed by them to be a religious dictate. It is what the almighty directed them to do. And they have indeed done it very well. Once you are converted to Islam you cannot go back. It is a one way street under sufferance of assassination and so is the case with land. Once it is conquered by Muslims, it is Muslim’s for ever. That is why Arabs are today reclaiming Spain right to the town of Poitiers in France, where Charles Martell stopped their advance and Europe to the gates of Vienna where the Polish King Jan III Sobieski stopped Kara Mustafa.

3. That’s all very well and could have been taken light heartedly today by the rest of the world had it not been for the West, which with tolerance and alacrity seem to accept as natural this attitude as long as it is directed towards the Jews. Even the rise of Bin Laden never woke up Europe to this phenomenon. The new “religion” of human rights and multiculturalism seem to gloss over the Arab attitudes and policies to Jews in general and to Israel in particular. Unfortunately for the Arabs, as it was so unfortunate for the fanatic Germans this is not helping them, the Arabs, in fact it is at the heart of their problems pulling them back to the dark ages. Islamic tolerance brought the enlightenment into Europe, but sadly skipped over their own nations elsewhere.

4. The solution to the Arab and especially the Palestinian plight in their relationship with Israel could have been resolved long time ago, if only their leaders grasped the immorality of the concept of Judenrhein and even more so if the West stopped accepting it as normal in Arab countries. This acquiescence fostered its encouragement with disastrous effect on the Arabs themselves. Unless some Arab leaders woke up to this situation, the Middle East will be engulfed in a sea of blood.

5. If the Palestinians as recently as the time of the evacuation of Gaza stood up and said: we claim back Gaza as our land , but we have no problem with the Jewish settlements there to stay as part of Palestinian Gaza with Jews living the way they live today in Germany, England and the USA, Gaza would have been today the new Hong Kong of the Middle East with Israel as its hinterland and market and source of finance.

6. A last chance to act sensibly lies today at the door of the Syrians to start a process, which will bring real peace and prosperity to the region. The Syrian leaders, who clamour for the Golan should take the initiative and suggest that the Jews in the Golan Heights can stay after the withdrawal of Israel to the shores of Tiberias as citizens of Syria or as Israelis in residence in a Syrian Golan subject, as other citizens in Syria, to Syrian law in the way the Jews live in England, France or Germany today. It is then that the Israeli resistance to withdrawal will melt away and a great and prosperous Golan can offer itself to millions of tourists from all over the world who will enjoy the fusion of Arab and Jewish culture reminiscent of and recalling the glorious days of Cordoba and Toledo.

Aharon Nathan, 1st May 2008

Israel Arab Conflict (Post Annapolis)

Post Annapolis solution is unilateral disengagement

There are four sides to the Annapolis initiative. Each one of them can contribute to its success and all of them for the time being are going in the same direction. However internal problems in Israel and more so amongst Palestinians and Arabs will lead them to no conclusion. And therefore the only possible solution will have to be Sharon’s Solution i.e. for Israel to withdraw unilaterally from the West Bank to the borders agreed in the Bush-Sharon exchange of letters of 14th April 2004.

1. The US side: A general view is prevalent that if only America can lean on Israel, everything will come right. This is a naïve understanding of the situation on the ground. America is poised between two main allies and influences and at this minute in time luckily for us they coincide; but for how long? America sees Israel as its Hawaii in the Middle East. It can not trust any other country in the region. In the Mediterranean, Lebanon is erupting, Syria is scheming and Egypt is imploding. Further inland Iran casts its shadow on Iraq and the Gulf gaining succour from Russia and China. A nascent Cold War is showing signs of revival. America does not need to lean on Israel. Israel has no alternative but to be de facto the 51st State. Its situation dictates that and indeed it has been acting that role in all spheres since Suez. America adopted that stance from 1967 onwards.

2 The Israel side: Inside Israel today public opinion and the balance of political forces in the Knesset are nationalistic right wing. And yet despite that, the vast majority of the population are for peace, once they believe it is real. The US administration knows this and Olmert knows this too, that is why from their different angles they need and want to catch the opportunity to put a stop to a conflict that is harming both countries.
Sharon realised that the occupied territories had become an existential threat for Israel. He acted unilaterally on Gaza because he knew he could not attain his objective in a lengthy process. He concluded that he needed to walk out while it was possible. Olmert is of the identical opinion. But his fragile coalition dictated that he needed to give up the West Bank through negotiations. He too realised that if he waited too long Israel might not find a "taker" The alternative then will be a one unified state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean that would evolve - by default.

3. The Arab side: America’s other real allies in the region are Saudi Arabia and its Gulf satellites. Iran is a threat to their economic interests: the oil and the vast dollar-absorbing financial centres in the Gulf. There is a clear and complete identity of interest there. That is why Saudi Arabia was at Annapolis now and in Beirut then with its famous initiative.

The historic rivalry between Shia and Sunni provides a historic backdrop of enmity that accentuates the underlying material conflicts today. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are using this theological camouflage which echoes well in their streets to hide the real conflict of their rulers.

It is convenient for all parties to use Israel as a proxy and a patsy. Russia is resuming its Cold War with the West using the historical buffer country of Iran. Europe, as always, wants to have the cake and eat it. Sheltering under the US umbrella they can afford to pretend neutrality.

4. The Palestinian Side: Israel should be worried about the pincers of Gaza and the West Bank arching over it. For the sake of an enduring co-existence and avoidance of future conflagrations, these two parts of Palestine need to be separated and made to orientate in different directions. Hamas today is a great help! However instead of relieving this tight grip, Israel seems hell bent on converging them. In fact they are playing into the hands of the supposed Palestinians’ protectors and Israel’s presumed peace partners: Egypt and Jordan. Egypt has kept Gaza under Israeli rule to prevent spilling political turmoil into their country. A similar situation prevailed since the 6-Day War on the Jordan River. Their interest is to keep the status quo. It is incredibly foolish of the Israelis to be blind to this situation for so long. While keeping Gaza isolated from the West Bank Israel should encourage open borders between Gaza and Sinai to give vent for a pressured population to find vents and escapes.

The Saudis too were happy till recently to keep Israel as the whipping baddy. But instead of helping the refugees they doled out enormous amounts of money to corrupt Palestinian leaders in order to keep a convenient status quo. Here comes the threat from Iran and all the three suddenly need Israel, the only power in the region to stand up to Iran and to ensure that America moves in the same direction.

But instead of perceiving non-Arab Iran as a natural ally like Turkey, Israel’s politicians went out of their way to position themselves at the head of Iran’s enemies harming America diplomatically without gaining any added advantage. Instead of working quietly inside the anti-Ahmedinejad pack Israeli politicians position themselves at the top and rushed vociferously to lead it.

5. HAMAS: The Palestinian streets are growing restless. The Palestinian leaders, well-dressed, well-fed and enormously endowed find themselves unable to control their communities. They managed to gobble the vast funds provided by Donor Countries leaving little to trickle down to their people. A vacuum is created which is quickly filled by HAMAS and an internal struggle ensued.

6. LEBANON/SYRIA: To the Lebanese the Palestinian Refugees constitute an existential threat. In Syria they have become another Sunni bone in the throat of the Alawite Junta. It is Lebanon and Syria (not Egypt and Jordan) who need an Israeli/Palestinian resolution to push their refugees out and into Palestine. But both are helpless.

Therefore it is not realistic to expect all these conflicts to end quickly.

7. In conclusion: Ahmedinejad is the fulcrum that is holding all this structure together. What if Rafsanjani replaces him and Iran seeks accommodation with America and the Gulf ? The precarious structure will fall apart and the status-quo-anti will return. Israel will have to continue the occupation of a West Bank that might not want to be separated from Israel.

The leaderships of the two main protagonists of Annapolis are too weak to deliver an agreement. But of the two, it is the fragmentation of the Arab side that will eventually scupper any possible resolution.
So what is left for Israel to do when this year passes without conclusion? The answer is to be prepared to declare that it would implement withdrawal from the West Bank unilaterally on the lines of the Bush-Sharon’s letter of agreement and take immediate steps to implement it. The majority of Israelis, including Israeli Arabs, will support that move. And so will the electorate if a general election or referendum is called.

Aharon Nathan, December 2007

www.AharonNathan.com

Israel Arab Conflict (Gaza versus Sderot)

The Solution: Release the Pressure Cooker

There is no better time than pre Yom Kippur to reflect on our omissions and commissions towards our suffering people. Heart breaking scenes from Sderot contrast with anarchical and sterile debates amongst the great and good on the TV screens. As the participants seem to cancel each other’s arguments, leaving us confused in thinking and tortured in spirit, a different angle and different solutions are called for.

1. Sharon, by confining Arafat to Ramallah effectively moved the centre of political gravity (and its corrupting pot of gold) from Gaza to the West Bank. Resisting the building of any bridge, flyover or tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank should be the follow up to this vital move. Any Palestinians’ sovereign physical link crossing Israel will only stoke conflict and hostility for the future and undermine any future peaceful coexistence. Uniting the two parts of Palestine in any form, directly or indirectly will result in cutting Israel in two in its most vulnerable belly and expose it to future pincer violence simultaneously applied from Hebron and Gaza. All movements between the two parts of Palestine have to be by passports and transit or term visas. In this way the population of Gaza will be orientated and will gravitate towards Egypt while those of the West Bank will be orientated towards Jordan. That will release the pressure on Gaza and lift the pressure off Israel. Jordan and Egypt will resist this move since the infiltration of Palestinians into these countries will eventually impact on their internal politics. For years Israel foolishly acted as border protective shields for both countries. It is time to wake up.

2. Nothing could have helped Israel more than the rise of Hamas as the ruling authority in Gaza. It is a gift to Israel from heaven. Hamas is unwittingly helping Israel to perpetuate what Sharon courageously started. It will be ill-advised to impede the natural outflow of surplus population via Egypt to the rest of the Arab world and beyond. The stupidity of guarding the Philadelphi line is astounding and the proposal to dig up a canal is simply beyond belief. Gaza is not Southern Lebanon. It lacks the hinterland to give it depth. Any substantial smuggling of weapons will make it easier for IDF (Israel Defence Force) to target them in the future. The problem is the pressure cooker situation Israel is helping to perpetuate in Gaza. It is not in its interest to isolate Gaza from Sinai nor is it in the interest of those Arabs who want to solve the problem of the Refugees..

3. But what about the Katushas and Sderot. The Philadelphi border line, opened or closed will make little difference. You only need primitive workshops and some fertilizers and chemicals to manufacture Katushas. Israel can not afford to wait 2/3 or more years for the anti satellites star war weapons to repel Katushas. For its present purpose Israel has all the technical necessary skills now. Its know how is sufficient to locate many launching pads in order to initiate retaliatory actions which when coupled with the present limited actions of the IDF might provide an easing of the acute situation in Sderot and may put a stop to it altogether. How?

4. Let us use a two-prong action at the same time. Let Israel substitute property for life in order to keep international public opinion on its side. The first is to announce that all launching locations, not only the launching pads, are legitimate targets to be destroyed even if those include substantial multi-storey houses. It announces the new policy by broadcasting and even dropping leaflets to the effect that such and such an address was used as a launching pad and produces the satellite picture to back that. And then to give a warning that within 48 hours that location will be destroyed from the air. And it advises the inhabitants of that place and for extra caution the near-by houses to evacuate. And then carry out the limited bombing. It is only then that Hamas will stop using the people of Gaza as human shields. It is then that the innocent in Gaza will stand together with Israel against Hamas.

5. At the Same time Israel declares that it accepts that Hamas is de-facto in charge of Gaza as indeed it claims. Therefore its leaders bear the responsibility for the rain of Katushas on Sderot. Israel holds its leaders responsible. Therefore it warns that it will target the villas and habitations of its leaders and in each case it gives enough warning to evacuate before it destroys them. The message will be driven literally HOME to those leaders. Assassinating them proved to be useless as they would be replaced by worse.

6. These two measures, besides the present limited operations by the IDF, will cost Israel little, save lives on all sides and will not provoke international outcry and legal complications. It saves the lives of soldiers if Israel invades and accusation of collective punishment if it stops electricity and water. Israel won wars by using common sense and extemporized solutions not by strictly following military manuals. Implementing the above proposals may prove to be the bitter medicine it needs to administer to its enemies now instead of prescribing sweet palliatives to its public. Let panic and red alerts be transferred from Sderot to Gaza

7th September 2007
Aharon Nathan set up and headed the civil administration of Gaza Strip in 1956

Israel Arab Conflict (Debacle in Lebanon)

In the Aftermath of the Lebanon 4-Week War

Background
1. For three decades we have been going from one debacle to another followed by mostly futile blame games and commissions of enquiries concluding always that it is the fault of individuals, the fault of others. This time it has to be different. We must face up to our collective responsibility as a country, as a nation, Government, Opposition, the political establishment and especially all factions that make up our Knesset whose existence is there to represent us, all of us:- WE THE PEOPLE. This time it has to be different because not since the 1948 War of Independence have we faced the thought of Israel’s extinction; the destruction of the only refuge of last resort, the only State that we can claim to be ours. The existential dangers we are facing are being articulated loud and clear by powerful and resourceful enemies: Hezbollah backed to the hilt by Iran and Syria. This danger however may prove to be more manageable and temporary than the bigger attritions and persistent dangers of the mobilized anti Israel, anti Jewish and anti-Semitic Arab forces backed by European public opinion and media. Facing that we seem to descend into a siege position, indeed a ghetto mentality saying: There is nothing we can do more than we have been doing and as the world hates us anyway and we have no partners for peace we have no choice but to continue with more of the same. We need to challenge this attitude. We have to distinguish between permanent matters of sheer existence as people and those changeable State’s needs for diplomatic alliances. We need now to adopt a long term strategy where even a 180 degree change of direction should not be left unexplored. But we can only do that if we stop our self-congratulatory posture post this war and grasp the fundamental changes that have been taking place relentlessly both in our region and also globally. The international landscape is witnessing the birth of new economic empires (China, Japan & India) who know little and care less for Jews and Judaism to whom Israel is just one more tiny state surrounded by countries with whom these empires’ interests are growing by the day. Our business leaders are acutely aware of that and are acting accordingly, but not our politicians who seem to continue to slumber in the old order.
2. In the aftermath of the debacle of the 4-week Lebanon War we have to ask ourselves fundamental questions. These questions need to be daring, deep and all encompassing. There is no doubt that for one century now our Arab neighbors have not accepted us. In turn we on our side ceased long ago to try to understand them. A mental curtain has descended between us and the Arabs, and that includes our own Arab citizens. We have become accustomed to view each other through a telescopic gun-barrel. One notable development has been contributing in recent years to the barrier separating us from our neighbors. Those amongst us who were born in Arab countries and understand their language, history and culture are disappearing. In contrast the Arabs are fast learning what make us the people we are. The command of Hebrew among some of their leaders, scholars and commentators is astonishing and their diligent pursuit of what is going on in Israel is envious. Some of our Arab MKs speak better Hebrew than many of their fellow Jewish MKs. And you only need to view the daily analysis in Al-Jazeera of our Hebrew dailies to put our kol Yisrael to shame.
3. However, our Arab neighbors are themselves facing acute internal problems of social strife political bankruptcy and overwhelming population explosion. The Palestinians are left to themselves and they are reveling in their infighting and delusions making it impossible to reach any accommodation with us. New Nassers and new Arafats are popping up everywhere without the Arabs asking themselves what good their old heroes did for them and what purpose the new ones serve. With this hopeless situation prevailing, it was right and practical for us to build the Security Wall and it was wise to act unilaterally to give both sides time to find a solution for coexistence. Late though Sharon was right. On the Arab side they can only accept coexistence once it dawns on them that Israel is there to stay not because of its army, not because of its history, not because of the Holocaust, but because the living 6 million Jews in Israel (more than half of whom anyway are descendents of ethnically cleansed Arab Jewish refugees) have nowhere else to go. They have no choice but to stand up and fight even if it is a war of mutual destruction with their enemies. Only this realization will convince the Arabs to seek mutually acceptable solutions.
4. On our side, our social fissures and political instabilities are creating hesitancy and lack of resolve and are sabotaging the implementation of our only available policy i.e securing ourselves unilaterally and quickly within defensible walls. These walls and new borders have to be defendable militarily and, even more importantly, acceptable in due course internationally through negotiation. We cannot solve these problems without introducing real changes in our political structures, without finding remedies to integrate our population including our minorities (Jewish and Arab) and without challenging what has come to be taken for granted in the assumptions underlying our political thinking.

Fundamental Questions
5. All the above can be summed up in the 3 basic areas: External Security, Internal Stability and Pro-active Public Relations. We need to keep analysing and articulating in order to accord with new circumstances developing as a result of previous preceding failures to deal with them. These 3 problems are interconnected and interwoven and must be dealt with and constantly reviewed in a strategic and coherent way. Successive Governments failed to deal with them as an integral whole. And at the heart of these failures is the tactical, piecemeal, fire engine response whenever a flare up erupts in any one of these three areas without any coordination between them. This approach is displayed starkly before our eyes now. Shoot first, justify later! Often Pangloss-like we assert that anything we have done is the best that could have been done. In fact the root of our failure is the lack of strategic thinking well ahead and co-ordinated overall plans backing them. The underlying reason for this sad state of affairs is not that we don’t have intelligent leaders in abundance (witness our science, medicine, business etc) but that members of our government coalitions cobbled together by unholy factional alliances, often respond with self-serving knee-jerk reactions rather than with cool calculated long term strategies. In times of crisis our Governments play too much to the media gallery, preying on the fears of the people, to the dismay of Israel’s citizens, friends and supporters. In all these cases neither we nor our sympathizers worldwide are helped by us with a well prepared ready proactive PR to understand the new realities to which we need responses. Unfortunately our fragile factions-based governments lack the steel in them to know better and to act differently. What is even worse is that our Knesset, the depository of our sovereignty, is itself paralysed and due to its structure unable to guide the Executive in time of crisis. For instance how can Netanyahu, with his mere 12 MKs, speak for a credible Opposition? Nothing will change until an Official Opposition look and act as an alternative government, the measure of a real democracy. This can only happen when a new electoral system is introduced to produce a stable Knesset and therefore stable full term governments.
6. So in the aftermath of this 4-Week War we need to ask many questions which on the face of it might look haphazard and disjointed when in fact they are interconnected and intertwined. And better to start in the overall national security sphere. Has our dependence on the USA forced us to act as their scouts shield and fire-fighter in the Middle East? Do we need to be their Hawaii in the Mediterranean? Do we need to go all the way in that direction or to pull back for our sake as much as for our American friends and allies? Identifying with every step they take is harming us without helping them. Did we let ourselves be caught in a power struggle between the Shi'a and the Sunni countries and peoples leaving ourselves to be the only element that is uniting them instead of taking advantage of their divisions? Did we try to forge new regional alliances while the peace with Egypt and Jordan still holds and our mutual defense interests with Turkey still intact? Did we keep the Gaza population in a pressure cooker waiting for it to explode? And therefore did we in this way only protect Egypt not ourselves from their militant radicalism? And likewise did we in effect by keeping our soldiers on the Jordan River protect the artificial integrity of Jordan? Is it time to let Gaza and the West Bank gravitate naturally in opposite directions one towards Egypt and the other to Jordan using both countries as bridges to slow infiltration of their exploding numbers into other Arab countries instead of imprisoning them inside the Occupied Territories? Are we wise in blocking this natural merging process instead of preventing it through controlling the Palestinian borders? Did we blunder in not welcoming the initiatives of Saudi Arabia instead of every time rejecting them out of hand? Did we distinguish between the motives credentials and methods of the Sunni Hamas from the Shi’a Hezbollah? Why not attempt direct contact with them using Fatah and Amal ? After all their memberships are the inhabitants of our borders and no battle or war will dislodge them from their homes? Recognizing us or not is semantics at this stage. Did we listen to the advice of our own friendly Arabs and more importantly the new brave voices coming from the Gulf? Did we analyze what the Knesset Arab MKs, friendly and hostile, are telling us? Are we missing the opportunity of using them as intermediaries and points of contact with the Arab world? Did we try to include them meaningfully in our delegations and representations in the international community as Israelis speaking for Israel? Did we examine the truth of the accusations by the outside world that we only know how to use force? Is our thinking governed by rigid entrenched assumptions of siege mentality (whether on the Right or on the Left) that are leading us to the same conclusions and therefore the same policies? In politics as in Academia but not in science and business we are led by fuzzy thinking that concentrates so much on trees that the sight of the wood is lost in distant drowsing mist. It is time to wake up and seek comprehensive answers. ( I shall attempt separately in a Q&A to analyze and answer these questions)

In the Aftermath of War
7. Our mismanagement of the 4-Week War is now forcing Lebanon to compromise with the leadership of Shi’a Iran in our North and our disjointed and late responses in Gaza is fostering a Sunni based Al Qaeda in the South. We lost the early opportunity of this war while the whole world was supporting us, to seek openly to sit face to face or through intermediaries with the Lebanese present government with its majority of Sunnis Christian and Druze. Instead we destroyed the ground from under its feet and repositioned it as hostage in the hands of Hezbollah and the Arab Street. With American influence and the tacit behind the scenes support of Sunni countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and most of the Gulf we can still find a way out of the straight jacket which within four weeks we managed to tighten around our chests. Our approach to the Iranians notwithstanding the apocalyptical pronouncements of Ahmadi-Nejad and as distinct from the Syrians was wrong from A to Z because we responded to the Iranian Government rhetoric instead of addressing ourselves to the Iranian people. We insulted the pride of the Iranian people and played into the hands of their crazy government (witness the early responses of Mofaz and Peres). We let ourselves be caught by the American approach, harming it and our American allies in the process. It is in our mutual interest to demonstrate to our neighbors and to the world that we are an independent close and loyal ally of the USA but we are not its client-state in the region. Instead of responding belligerently to Iran’s rhetoric as we did we should have lay low. We are a small country often trying to pose in super power robes. We can increase our appeal in the region to paraphrase an Old Persian dictum if we don’t stretch our legs beyond the length of our rug.
8. Iran’s leadership is merely using Israel as a proxy in its conflict with America provoking us for that purpose by Hezbollah. Instead of falling into their strategic devilish trap we should try to reach to the non Hezbollah Shi’as like Nabih Berry’s Amal Party instead of forcing it to play second fiddle to Hezbollah. Let us give credit to our enemies. They are not stupid. Iran knows that Hezbollah and not even Iran itself can defeat Israel or wipe it out. But they can use us and cause us untold damage in the process. At the moment they are interested in subjugating Lebanon to complete the Shi’a Arc stretching from Tehran to the Mediterranean, and divide the Sunni North from the Sunni South. Israel is not party to their conflict with the Sunnis and what they perceive to be their Western protectors. Let the West secure its interests. Why should we sacrifice our children to pick its chestnuts from the fire? We would have been well advised to re-evaluate our position, held our nerve in the face of provocations by Ahmadi Nejad, tone down our rhetoric and refrain from direct involvement in the West’s confrontation with Iran. The present atomic Pakistani (call Bin Laden’s) Bomb constitutes more of a real danger to us if President Musharraf is suddenly assassinated than a future uncertain Iranian one. And both are far more dangerous to the West and to the Arab countries than to us. The Saudi king spelled his fear of the Iranian Bomb in no uncertain terms here in London. Why do we need to be their patsy? A limited military response for few days instead of full 4 weeks could have done the trick, spared many Israeli lives retained the mystique of our power of deterrence and invincibility. As it happened our military achievements, which are considerable but at a price, look doubtful in the eyes of the Arab and international worlds and our diplomatic failures are clearly disastrous and painfully visible.

Solutions and Policy Direction
9. Blame and lamentation will not set the clock back. So how to proceed. Olmert was right when in the midst of the war he declared that he would carry on with his plan of continued disengagement, unilaterally if a Palestinian consent was not forthcoming. He was after all elected on that very platform. By subsequently retracting it he has done a great harm to himself and to the image and future of Israel. Instead he should have defiantly repeated it and said that he wanted to accelerate it. This episode illustrates the impotence of our political system which needs urgently to reform. His retraction is more to do with internal politicking and not with the national interest. He can still salvage his reputation and emerge as a great peace leader if he would set out an even more ambitious plan now facing his opposition head on. And he should announce it and challenge Arab positions in all fronts rather than let leaks dissipate its international impact. Sharon’s decision to pull out unilaterally gained him and Israel tremendous credit. Olmert should turn a deaf ear to his internal intimidators. Frankly after the 4-Week War he has nothing to lose and everything to gain if he goes out bold and defiant. I believe the country at large would support him as indeed it unpredictably did to Sharon.
10. Israel's future survival can only be assured if we separate ourselves from the rest of the Arab World. Leaving Gaza was a first step which now should be followed immediately by a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank to within the lines agreed in the Bush/Sharon exchange of letters (of the 14th April 2004) This needs to happen quickly while Bush is still there. Abu Mazin is willing from his own perspective to cooperate. It is up to him to include Hamas and anybody else he wants to or forced into. Let us stop interfering in Palestinian politics. We have been getting nowhere assassinating this or that leader or fighting a shadowy guerrilla. Leaving them alone would eventually make them turn their attention to develop economic interests which would induce them to protect and seek to strengthen through relationship with Israelis. The most efficient way to repel katyushas is by harnessing world opinion and not taking out this or that launching pad.
11. Olmert should announce voluntarily that he will release the un-convicted Palestinian prisoners. Let us give what we save in costs to our suffering destitute in the peripheries. The narrative that these prisoners will be enemy soldiers does not wash anymore. There are millions of them all around us. Their release would add little to the hostile human sea around us. Completing the Border Wall along the above lines and in compliance with the modifications ordered by the Supreme Court will leave Israel in the best position to negotiate a final status peace treaty with the new Palestinian State. Sharon/Olmert plans are right. Negotiation and fixing final borders should come later. If left for negotiation it can take years and untold number of fatalities on both sides in the meantime. Quick action will spare internal slow and damaging strife amongst our people. This physical separation, far from antagonizing the Arabs, will pave the way for better relations with them and remove the sting and the stink of the occupation.
12. And while it is still in our control, we ought to build a separation fence in the middle of the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque. This barrier will protect the Jewish worshippers of the Kothel/Western Wall in the future and avoid the constant tension often leading to violence created by Islamists during Friday prayers. Once this is done we should then proceed unilaterally to hand back the Mosque to the Palestinians together with East Jerusalem as we define it. Let Arab Al-Quds (Jerusalem in Arabic) which will anyway join with Ramallah be separated from Jewish Jerusalem. It is not as impractical as many try to characterize this separation barrier. Remember that the idea of any wall or physical separation was thought to be crazy only four years ago.
13. Sharon, by confining Arafat to Ramallah effectively moved the centre of political gravity (and its corrupting pot of gold) from Gaza to the West Bank. Resisting the building of any bridge, flyover or tunnel between Gaza and the West Bank should be the follow up to this vital move. Any Palestinians sovereign physical link crossing Israel will only stoke conflict and hostility for the future. Uniting the two parts of Palestine will result in cutting Israel in two in its most vulnerable belly from a future pincer violence simultaneously applied from Hebron and Gaza. All movements between the two parts of Palestine have to be by passports and transit or term visas. In this way the population of Gaza will be orientated and will gravitate towards Egypt while those of the West Bank will be orientated towards Jordan. That will lift the pressure off Israel. Jordan and Egypt will resist this move by us since the infiltration of Palestinians into these countries will eventually impact on their internal politics. For years we foolishly acted as border protective shields for both countries. It is time to wake up.

More Bold New Initiatives
14. That leaves the two problems of Hebron and the Golan. Here we must recognize that the Jewish enclave in Hebron will always be a vulnerable continuing festering wound. Its continued existence as it is today is an invitation for a future massacre of its Jewish population as indeed happened in the 1930s. Israel could declare, again unilaterally, that a period of its protection by the IDF, say 5 years, is to be followed by complete withdrawal. This would leave the Jewish settlers with the choice, either to relocate to Israel or if they could establish during these 5 years peaceful coexistence with the local population to remain as Israeli citizens living as residents in Palestine becoming subject, like any other foreign resident to Palestinian law. The good engendered by our unilateral declaration will help to create a new climate in Hebron. But more importantly it will challenge the Arabs’ underlying adoption of the concept of Judenrein.
15. Incidentally this would also be the best model for a solution for the Golan Heights. Here again unilaterally Israel should declare that once Syria acknowledges Israel’s claim that the international borders leave the entire shoreline of Lake Tiberias within Israel, the Golan Heights could revert to Syrian sovereignty say five years after a peace treaty and exchange of Ambassadors. Olmert should be the first to take the initiative and declare this solution. I believe the Golan Heights will soon be on the international agenda anyway so why not preempt that. It is therefore time to come up first with our own creative and bold solution which could turn the Golan into a great multi cultural tourist centre for the benefit of both countries. Such solution silly as it may sound to some diehard pessimists amongst us could catch the imagination of the international community and afford a way out of our impasse with Syria. It seeks to expose and may destroy the pernicious racist concept of Judenrein prevailing in Arab lands. We should use this powerful and evocative word, Judenrein, in this context and take pain to explain it to an ignorant world media. The mere proposal by Israel can constitute in itself a coup. The predicted negative response from Bashar El-Assad will undermine his regime and may induce the majority Sunni opposition to come forward with encouragement from outside Arab countries to support such a fair plan that restores the Golan to Syria.

Consequences of the 4-Week War
16. This is not the place to analyse our overall military planning and piecemeal execution of the 4-Week War This is the field of experts who need to knock their heads together, but not in the glare of TV studios. All the relevant questions are anyway already in the public and media domain. The one big question is yet to be thrashed out. How is it that after the failure of the “Shock and Awe” approach in Iraq and the subsequent quagmire we did not learn the lesson? Mighty America and mighty NATO never embarked on a military operation let alone a war without patient preparations. Why we could not wait for few weeks when world public opinion was with us, exerting diplomatic pressure, calling and training our reserves, revising our military plans, coordinating them with our political objectives, all before crossing the border. Hezbollah was not going to invade following the capture of the two soldiers. Frankly I cannot see how any politician, from any party, can escape the shame and blame. They need to answer the bereaved families, the orphans and the crippled amongst our heroic youth who obediently answered the call of duty often knowing full well that they were not equipped adequately to defend a policy with which they were not necessarily in total agreement on its details.
17. No less failure but with worse dire consequences of the 4-Week War is the utter collapse of our PR to project and explain our just cause to the outside world. The support for Israel has evaporated in the whole of Europe and even amongst sections of our friendly American supporters. We failed and continue to fail to put our just case may be because some of us appear to have lost faith in it. We let ourselves stand in the dock accused, instead of initiating and forcing our own agenda on our detractors. Viewing our performance on the receiving end outside Israel, examples of our utter impotence are in abundance even when the opportunity of knock-out arguments are presented to us by hostile commentators. We always reacted rather than pre-empted the defence of our operations.
18. Nasrallah stated proudly in a long interview in Al-jazeera that, way back in the 90s, he understood the need to appoint two commanders: one to fight the battle and one to care for PR always ready with photographers and crews to back him. We have witnessed his spectacular success in this field on world TV networks which has contributed to our perceived failures militarily and morally. It is not enough to declare and assert that we are a moral army. We need to explain its roots. As Secretary to the Kafr Qasim Commission appointed in the middle of the Suez War almost 50 years to the day, I know how the moral and legal basis of our soldiers’ behaviour is determined. Ben Gurion in the middle of the Suez War understood the gravity of our image abroad and the behaviour of our soldiers in the battlefield. Abba Khooshi, the famous Mayor of Haifa and a member of this Commission, told me the moment I met him that we needed to ensure that the Sword of Israel is not sullied with innocent blood. I wonder how many in Israel let alone outside Israel know this background which preceded the famous Mi Lai massacre in Vietnam and established the IDF since as an army backed by moral rectitude. Therefore the appointment of a senior Minister of Information at par with and as important as the Defence and Foreign Ministers should be made as a matter of urgency and not one day too soon.
19. With the opposition in the Knesset emasculated by the nature of our political system and with the media being so adversarial, negative and self-serving, often concentrating on trivial sensational scoops, a shroud has descended over our eyes driving us to resignation and despair. Short-term tactics are taking over and quick remedies are sought when in reality we need root and branch radical solutions; and this even while we live in days when we don't know where the next missile is going to hit us from the North or from the South. Our leaders, our academics and our TV Studio Generals are making blame and recrimination as objectives instead of concentrating on the search for solutions.
20. To have the right to speak up, accompanied by reserve Brigadier-General and MK Eliezer Cohen, I visited Galilee in the midst of the war and saw the devastation on the ground and felt the desperation of the families in shelter. I met Major Gen. Gershon, GCO Home Front Command and learnt and listened to the problems facing us from Mayor Adi Eldar who by his personal example, action and few words articulated what was happening around him in Carmiel and how we were falling short. In his mild and modest manner I sensed what Prof. Arnon Sofer has been for too long pleading with us. Our country is divided between the indulgent rich and safe centre from Gedera to Hadera and the neglected peripheries. To many inhabitants of the North, whom I had the privilege to listen to as “refugees” in Tel Aviv I felt the return of “Second Israel” we used to talk about in the 50s and 60s.
21. Two points became clear to me. First I sensed that we were back at Yom Kippur days caught napping because the early Katushas fell in the peripheries far away from Tel Aviv. The North could not understand why we had to wait for the capture of soldiers to respond. Indiscriminate firing of Katushas on civilians were enough even in International law to constitute CASUS BELLI to react. The second point they kept raising was that there was nobody in the centre of government or the Knesset to represent their different regions leaving them at the mercy of charity hand outs and family support at a time when they were hiding underground in fear. The 4-Week War has come to the regions as a wake up call. Things have to change. Fundamental structural reforms have to follow.
22. I have been watching Al Jazeera for the last 4 months and it was clear for any viewer and that must have included some viewers in Israel that Hezbollah was planning, scheming and preparing something. They were day after day analyzing our internal weaknesses, political divisions and social fissures. The weaknesses of Olmert Government at its inception and the factional nature of the Knesset were dissected ably by competent and knowledgeable commentators. That is why Nasrullah miscalculated. But he and those behind him missed one basic fact from their equation: this is that Israelis tend to forget their differences when it comes to their sheer existence simply because they have nowhere else to go. That is why it is only when we drive home to our Arab neighbors this simple truth that we might reach an accommodation and co-existence. But this can only happen when we on our side achieve a stable government, a representative Knesset and a powerful projection of our message to the world through a strong PR.
23. So now, even while licking our wounds, is the time to press ahead harder with our reform of the Knesset and Government. The President’s Commission for examining the Government and Governance of the country presided over by Prof Megidor is due to present its findings in Sept/Oct of this year. In view of our present calamitous DEBACLE, nothing could have been more timely and more relevant. Unless a clear and unified final report emerges from the Commission detailing agreed proposals for prompt implementation by the present 17th Knesset of real structural meaningful reform, the public reaction will be swift and uncompromising. The people in the regions and their supporters everywhere who suffered most and continue to suffer in the aftermath of the war for lack of direct representation will feel betrayed by an elite of academics and public figures entrusted with and given a whole year to come up with the goods. These will be perceived as caring more for their careers than their duties to the Presidency and the People. The regions and the public at large might erupt in frustration and anger in a powerful popular movement that will sweep out the present establishment of politicians that has been for too long enjoying power neglecting the trust of the real sovereign, the People of Israel.

Aharon Nathan
20th August 2006
http://www.aharonnathan.com/

Israel Arab Conflict (Oxford Union Address)

Aharon Nathan’s address on behalf of the Opposition to the Debate at the Oxford Union on 8th June 2006. The following motion lost and the Opposition led by Mr Nathan won by a large majority.

“THIS HOUSE BELIEVES IRAN HAS NO LESS RIGHT TO NUCLEAR WEAPONS THAN ISRAEL”

Mr President,
It is a great privilege for me to speak in this world famous hall on a subject that has haunted me all my life. So forgive my lack of wit and humour. All points for and against were already made by other speakers so eloquently and comprehensively that very little is left for me to pay for my dinner. Let me therefore summarize rather than expound for both sides of the aisle.
Nuclear weapons are an abomination. However, they have at least become internationally accepted as being deterrents to avoid the breakout of war and not weapons to be used in pre-emptive strikes. The problem is how to prevent them falling into the hands of rogue regimes or terrorist organisations. No one, not even its enemies, can say that Israel belongs to these categories. Nor do I think does Iran.
The case for Israel however, is not that Iran has less right, but that for the necessity of preserving its sheer existence, Israel has more right than Iran or indeed any other country.
1. Both Iran and Israel are stirred and spurred by fear of their neighbours. Iran’s fear is certainly not from tiny remote Israel however much Iran’s present leadership vocalise their apocalyptically expressed hostility. Israel has no quarrel with Iran and Iran has no reason to fear Israel unless you accept that if you are a Muslim anywhere you should by definition be in conflict with Jews. I can not believe that the Iranian people who were well disposed to Jews and Judaism throughout their history, pre and post Islam, would accept this premise. Iran’s leadership is merely using Israel as a proxy in its conflict with America. (…Otherwise there is no other reason why Iran’s government should be more hostile to Israel than neighbouring Egypt or Jordan who made peace with Israel….)
2. The fear of the Shi’a in Iran stems from a deep-rooted historic rivalry with, and mutual mistrust of Sunni Arab Islam. Ever since Khomeni’s Islamist Revolution this fear has been heightened by American support first for Sunni Saddam Hussein and later on for Sunni Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, and finally by the emergence of Sunni Pakistan as a nuclear power. These facts are behind the Iranian conflict with the West. Israel is not party to this conflict. (….and it would be well advised to re-evaluate its position, hold its nerve in the face of provocations by President Ahmadi Nejad, tone down its rhetoric and refrain from direct involvement in the West’s confrontation with Iran)
3. Iran has its sovereign right to go Ahamadi Nejad’s North Korean way or Rafsanjani’s South Korean way. It has the choice, and the right, but it does not have the need for Nuclear weapons. Israel is not in such a fortunate position. It continuously faces declarations by neighbouring nations threatening to wage a war of extermination and encouraging their streets and even their school children to that same end. It is in the context of self defence that Israel sought its nuclear capability. It held these weapons for decades but never once threatened anyone with them. Israel did not even confirm their existence in order to avoid any implied threat of employing them. Why has it suddenly now become an issue? It is particularly strange coming after Pakistan successfully exploded its Bomb. It has become increasingly crucial for Israel today facing the prospect of an unstable and porous Pakistan under the shadow of Bin Laden and with Ahmedi Nejad not mincing his words in echoing Arab leaders before him threatening and inciting and supplying arms and missiles to Israel’s neighbours to wipe Israel off the map. Israel’s need for its nuclear shield has never been greater to give her the feeling of security and military stability with so many refusing to recognise its legitimacy or even its existence.
4. Israel’s fears must be understood against its historical background. Two thousand years of persecution, execution and forced conversion culminated in Hitler’s Final Solution, a solution which wiped out almost half the world’s Jewish population on the watch of the civilised world.
5. Today it is worrying Israelis and Jews alike that what happened in Germany under the Nazis in the early 1930s is being re-enacted in a startling similar way in Europe today. Every aspect of life in Israel, its people, its institutions, its places of learning, even its acclaimed courts of justice are being demonized. Recently this demonizing has been organized and reinforced by concerted bans and boycotts here in Europe in protest they say to the occupation of Palestinian lands to which the majority of the people of Israel are opposed. All this sends shivers in the hearts of Jews everywhere reminding them of the anti-Semitic demonizing propaganda of the 1930s, which was the precursor of, and prepared the ground for the Holocaust. As Condoleezza Rice stated recently: Anti-Semitism is not just a historical fact but a current event.
6. The Arab World has played and continues to play its active part too in the Jewish tragedy. During World War 2 they made Jewish life in their midst a living hell. By the early 1950’s when the safe haven of Israel opened, some 900,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed to Israel from Arab countries leaving all Arab countries what the Nazis called Judenrein, lands without Jews. Therefore what the Nazis failed to do the Arab countries accomplished and perpetuated. And the world accepts that as normal. These 900,000 Jewish refugees are forgotten because Israel did not leave them in camps to rot and did not ask the UN to set up agencies to serve to perpetuate their misery and status as refugees. With help from Jews worldwide these Jewish refugees with their bare hands gave themselves dignity, security and a future in stark contrast to the way rich, very rich, Arabs treated the then 700,000 Palestinian refugees and disgracefully continue to treat them today. Mr President, I was a victim and a witness of this (constructive) ethnic cleansing. My personal story tells it all.
7. Fleeing Iraq, in my case via Iran, whose people I will always be indebted to for their hospitality and safe passage at my desperate time of need. I arrived at the absorption centre in Israel in 1949. I found there a mixture of people all dejected all helpless. My fellow refugees from Arab countries were desperately trying to rebuild their lives out of nothing in a land of nothing. But it was the sight of the remnants of the holocaust camps that broke my heart and my spirit. I saw frightened shadows of human beings dazed, confused and broken trying to regain their existence as humans. But the worst of all instead of hatred, rage and bitterness I found many trying to remove the concentration camp numbers on their arms feeling guilty of being alive and ashamed of not having put up a fight before allowing themselves to be led as sheep to the Gas chambers. It is the combined images of the ethnically cleansed Arab Jews who lost their countries, and the Holocaust remnants of European Jews who lost their dignity, that are engraved in my being and in the mind of every Jew who says “never again” Israelis feel the need to keep their nuclear shield not because they are on a Samson-like suicidal mission. It is because they are determined to live with pride and dignity denied to them in those dark days of the 30s and 40s. And this time, if they must die, they want to die fighting.
8. Fellow members of our great University, Your vote this evening will resound beyond the Quads of Oxford and the shores of Britain as indeed happened following the notorious debate of 1933. Israel desperately needs your support this evening at a time when it is waiting for a signal of hope from its Arab neighbours to create together two states living side by side in peace. It is these neighbours who can decide the fate of the Israeli nuclear weapons and make them redundant. Because it is they who continue to deny Israel and seek its destruction. Until their attitude changes Israel has the right above any other country be it Iran, Pakistan, France or Britain itself to continue to possess the nuclear shield, not to gain victory but through deterrence to prevent war and secure its continued existence. Mr President: Unlike Iran whose need for nuclear weapons is tenuous and optional, for Israel it is an existential imperative.

Aharon Nathan,
Oxford, 8th June 2006.