Rick Hertzberg's post about proportional representation precipitated unusually informative comments about how Israel's political system has helped to create the current stalemate, presumably by empowering smallish parties to hold bigger ones hostage to marginal views. There may be some lessons here for Americans.

Strict proportional representation was always good for national solidarity in that it gave (as Rick would have predicted) all views the guarantee of a voice; rates of voter participation were close to 80% in the 1960s and 70s. A downside was that it tended to empower party secretaries (and simple hacks) who waited their turn to rise to the top of party lists which they controlled, sort of the way junior professors work their way up to tenure and ultimately to control of their departments. (Peres had been an aid to Ben-Gurion, Olmert, to Justice Minister Shmuel Tamir, Sarid, to Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir, etc.; only top army officers were considered to have achieved something in their own right.)

The greatest downside was that, from the beginning of the state, PR also allowed Orthodox parties to hold the balance of power between a (mostly secular) moderate and dovish Labor Party, and a (mostly secular) reactionary and hawkish Likud, which meant that no secular constitution (bill of rights, separation of rabbinate and state, etc.) could be entertained. This has proven a disaster for the country.

So in the 1980s, there was all kinds of talk in liberal circles about raising the barrier to entering the Knesset to about 5% (it was actually raised slightly to require a minimum of 2 seats). After the liberal Rabin government was elected in 1992, the Knesset experimented (ultimately, through 3 election cycles) with the direct election of the prime minister to counter-balance the perceived factionalism--an experiment which was abandoned when prime ministers found themselves arrow-heads with no wood.

But, in any case, I agree with commentator Jonathan Edelstein that tweaking the electoral system further would likely not matter very much just now. The problem is that the country is really split into two rather well-articulated Jewish-Israeli camps, and elections are a periodic referendum on the side that appeals to a relatively narrow range of swing voters, much like America. Arab-Israeli voters (as other commentators have noted) have enough critical mass to weigh in with a more or less coherent liberal bloc, no matter what the barrier to entry.

Voting for a small party, you see, does not really make your side less likely to form a coalition. If I vote for the small, very dovish Meretz I know that the head of the coalition that would accept Meretz would either be Labor or Kadima, which are more or less indistinguishable representatives of the pro-American, largely secular, European-descended, more educated, entrepreneurial and globalist center: call them the tribes of Israel, centered on Tel-Aviv. On the other hand, if I vote for the small, very hawkish National Union, I am actually voting for a coalition to be led by Likud, which represents the tribes of Judea: more or less orthodox, less well-educated North African-descended, poor Russian immigrant, ward-of the state types, wary of "Arabs," full of ressentiment.

So the near-term problem for Israel's democracy is not that the former group cannot win a majority: if you add up the seats of the moderate center to seats of the Arab parties, the current government has a majority to cut a deal with the Palestinians. The problem is trying to make any deal stick without precipitating violent national kulturkampf. The hard right has killed one prime minister. It owns the streets of Greater Jerusalem. Even lesser fanatics know full well that a Palestinian state will put an end, not to Israel, but to their dreams of Greater Israel, let alone most settlements across the Green Line. That is why, as I've said, the only leadership that can make a difference now is the one being elected in Washington.

There are serious longer-term problems, too, which I set out at length in my book. The one that seems most germane to the current discussion (that is, to American democracy as well) is the proliferation, not of parties, but of commercial media outlets--TV channels and newspapers whose margins are thinning, competing on sensation, and therefore judging political figures, not for their truths, but on the likely success of their cons. There as here, public media--the saving grace--is slowly losing out.

In this kind of atmosphere, resonant but muddy phrases like "a Jewish and democratic state," "existential threat," "demographic problem," "not a friend of Israel," and so forth, get thrown around casually, becoming ways of labeling political figures. They are not being examined outside the pages of Haaretz, which is itself dismissed as the paper of "elitists."

This past few weeks, the country has been glued to sets watching "coverage" of a mother who apparently killed her own child. The interview programs, as here, are more and more becoming versions of the McLaughlin Group, with young, photogenic heads scoring the performance of guests before they even leave the studio. Only Israelis interrupt more.