If Israel is to survive in its hostile environment, it has an urgent need to dance to a faster and livelier tune than the plonker beat of Democracy.

Gaze at the mess our own Country has inherited from following that same path, where the only winners are gathered around the trough at the top.

There is an end point to the fallacy of inclusion through the fake Democratic process, Israel has reached it!

The simple fact is that a country cannot be a democracy unless it has a great degree of separation of religion and state. Israel does not have that separation. Australia does not have enough. Australia should get chaplains out of state schools. Israel should stop funding clergy except for chaplains in the armed forces and in prisons where people may not be able to get to clergy. Israel and Australia cannot be true democracies until they are countries for all of their citizens.

Agree!
Alan B.

Dear Dan,

«There is an end point to the fallacy of inclusion through the fake Democratic process»

The question being whether or not you want your views and wishes respected, or at least taken into account. In other words whether the state exists for its people or the people exist for their state.

It seems we differ on this point, please correct me if I am wrong.

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Dear David F.,

A country cannot be a democracy unless it provides free condoms for everyone.

We all have our likes and dislikes and we naturally like the state to follow them, but that does has little to do with democracy.

You very much want separation of religion and state (and BTW so do I), while another wants free condoms.

Yuyutsu

My God (whoopsie to David f on that one), how do you come up with your innovative ideas.

I’d be overjoyed to see all streets in Australia lined with Vatican flags, and the outlawing of rainbow flags, at penalty of death for flying one against the law!

Your idea of free condoms is excellent too, at every flag pole flying the Vatican flag, a condom filled with holy water is a superb idea.
I’m not sure how the Islamists would respond though!

I support the separating of state and religion (second point); ending the occupation (third point); and establishing a constitution (fourth point) - just not in the name of democracy, because they are unrelated.

While the "judicial reforms" (first point) is at the heart of democracy, I would like to now concentrate on the author's fifth point: "Reforming Israel's electoral system":

This electoral threshold, currently 3.25%, where a party that falls under that percentage is completely excluded, is a very anti-democratic implement, even more so where the electoral system has no Australian-like preferences, so the people who vote for these parties are not represented at all. When Israel was created, that used to be just 1%, but it crept up over the years and now the author wants to raise it even further to 7-8%.

The Knesset is supposed to represent the population of Israel.
If the Knesset is messy, polarized and dysfunctional, that is because it represents a messy, polarized and dysfunctional population (which probably should not have lived together to begin with).
"Fixing" the Knesset is to gloss over the reality, undemocratically preferring a functional government over the will of the people, a government that would suppress the will of even more.

Stable coalitions at any cost are not in the interest of voters, but in the interest of politicians. It is better that members of parliament/Knesset vote with their own conscience on each and every issue separately to represent those who elected them.
Even in practical terms, the presence of many 1-member or 2-member parties (which is now prevented by this 3.25%) provides more opportunities for flexible and dynamic coalitions.

Flaking of parties can and does occur, quite often, despite that 3.25% threshold; and parties that were formed ad-hoc to bypass this threshold, split into their original fragments the very day after the elections (albeit, less accurately representing the proportions of their voters).

At present, several responsible and conscientious members of the Likud itself (Netanyahu's party) are unwilling to continue with the "electoral reform" without a wider negotiated consensus. This is how a true democracy should operate.