There are few
Israelis who are able to speak with more authority about Israel’s dysfunctional
government than Dr. Paul Eidelberg. For
more than three decades, Dr. Eidelberg has been “the voice of one crying in the
wilderness,” imploring Israel’s leaders to draft the nation’s first
Constitution and replace the current system of Proportional Representation with
individual elections for each member of the Knesset.
Not one to pull
his punches or restrain his abundant intellect when speaking about the survival
of his beloved Israel, Dr. Eidelberg takes no prisoners as he discusses who is
to blame for Israel’s lack of security and diminished status with the nations
of the world:
“After studying
the pronouncements and policies of Labor and Likud Governments since 1976, I
have come to the serious and dismal conclusion that if the Labor Party
represents ‘organized treachery,‘ the Likud Party Represents ‘organized
hypocrisy.’ I have yet to decide which has been more damaging to
the State of Israel.”
While many
social critics constantly complain and offer few fresh ideas, Dr. Eidelberg has
spent the last 35 years analyzing the problems with Israel’s system of government
and proposing solutions. An American-Israeli political scientist, author and
lecturer, Eidelberg is the founder and president of The
Foundation for Constitutional Democracy. He wrote three
groundbreaking books on America’s founding fathers: The Philosophy of the
American Constitution, On the Silence of the Declaration of Independence,
and a Discourse on Statesmanship.
After
witnessing the chaos and confusion that emanates from Israel’s current
political establishment, Dr. Eidelberg authored detailed proposals for
political reform and drafted the first Constitution for the State of Israel.
Although the document was well received by some members of the Knesset,
Israel’s political elite have largely ignored Dr. Eidelberg’s work. They are
happy with the status quo and they have chosen to forego the opportunity to
become a true democracy “of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Israel is the free world’s last outpost in the Middle East
and her survival is an imperative for anyone who loves freedom and democracy.
Should Israel fall, there would be nothing to stop the establishment of a new
Islamic Caliphate from the Mediterranean to Asia and the forces of tyranny
would be poised to overrun Europe.
As one of the
leading voices for Constitutional reform in Israel, we invited Dr. Eidelberg to
visit The Inquisitr for an in-depth interview about the current state of affairs in Israel and to
tell us what must be done to protect and preserve the one safe haven on this
earth for the Jewish people.
Wolff Bachner: Dr. Eidelberg, welcome to The
Inquisitr.
Before we get
into the specifics of our discussion, please explain to our readers why you
decided to leave the United States and make Aliyah to Israel?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: In my first
visit to Israel, I learned that its political system of multiparty cabinet
government was dysfunctional. This system violated the basic principles set
forth in The Federalist Papers, the most important commentary on the American
Constitution the great English Prime Minister William Gladstone (1809-1898)
regarded as “the most wonderful work [on statesmanship] ever struck off at a
given time by the brain and purpose of man.” Since the subject of my doctoral
dissertation and first book was on the Constitution, I felt I might facilitate
some urgent reforms of Israel’s political system which was dis-empowering the
people and undermining Israel’s survival.
Wolff Bachner: Paul, I would imagine that people would
be stunned to discover that Israel does not have a Constitution.
How has the
state of Israel managed to function as a democratic nation
for 65 years without a Constitution?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: Any authentic
constitution affects the relationship between the rulers and the ruled. But for
the ruled—the people—to affect public policy—they must have a majority party
that represents them in the Legislature. Israel has never had anything close to
a majority party! The people have been fragmented by the seemingly democratic
principle of Proportional Representation with a low electoral threshold (today
only 2 percent). This multiplies parties like mushrooms. Each of the last two
elections fielded 33 parties!!!
As a
consequence, every Israeli government has consisted of a coalition of 5 or 6 or
more parties. This makes it virtually impossible to pursue coherent national
polices. But this means that what are naively called the “people” are not a
people but a conglomeration of diverse economic and ethnic and ideological
groups competing with each other for a larger slice of the public treasury!
Wolff Bachner: How did you become involved in the
attempt to reform Israel’s chaotic system of government?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: I was invited
by a member of a Knesset party
to present my proposals for constitutional reform. My proposal for a
presidential system was accepted by the leader of that party. However, my more
provocative proposal, to make MKs individually elected by and accountable to
the people in district or geographic-constituency election, was ignored. Why?
Because it is widely believed, without serious investigation—and certainly
without concern for Israel’s long term interests—that constituency elections
would result in a decline in the number of seats won by that party, as well as
by the religious parties whose support might be needed to form a government. In
the final analysis, any method which affects the relation between the rulers
and the ruled; hence it’s a question of power. I wanted to shift power from
parties to the people, whereas the leaders of the parties wanted to maximize
their own power. Aristotle taught this 2,400 years ago; and so did the
Americans in 1987.
Wolff Bachner: Didn’t you also draft a proposed
constitution for Israel. What became of that project?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: I drafted a Constitution for Israel in
1994 on my own initiative. I went to the States in 1995 to rally
support from Zionist organizations. I got none. Why not? Zionist organizations
get money from donors who believe that Israel is the “only democracy” in the
Middle East. Along comes Eidelberg, a fairly well-known University of Chicago
political scientist, who tells audiences that Israel is Not a genuine
democracy. That’s enough to close the door on Eidelberg, notwithstanding his
ideas about how to make Israel more democratic by Jewish means, and more Jewish
by democratic means!
Wolff Bachner: Dr. Eidelberg, what are some of the most serious flaws in Israel’s political system?
Dr. Paul Eidelberg:
Despite the
fact that the Likud Party won more than 70 percent of the votes in February
2003, when it campaigned against the Labor Party’s policy of unilateral
withdrawal from Gaza, Likud Prime Minister Ariel Sharon adopted Labor’s policy
and thus effectively nullified that 2003 election! Moreover, in October of the
following year, the Knesset “legitimated” Sharon’s coup by enacting the “Gaza
Evacuation Law,” thanks to the votes of 23 Likud MKs who thus betrayed their
February 2003 election pledges to the nation…
Sharon’s
nullification of the 2003 election was actually political coup d’etat. Add the
spiritual coup that Prime Minister Netanyahu pulled four months after the March
2009 election. In June of that year, Netanyahu, without Knesset or public debate
(and contrary to his own Likud Party’s constitution), endorsed the creation of
an Arab Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish
civilization! So much for Proportional Representation, exalted as one of the
blessings of democracy…
The fact that
almost every democracy on the planet manages to conduct its public business by
means of multi-geographic- constituency elections should dispel the fiction
that Israel cannot function well or justly without its existing system. The
truth is that 65 years of this “system” has engendered the shoddiest politics. In the 1999
elections, 29 Knesset Members hopped over to rival parties in order to obtain
safe seats! Israel’s political “system” is a disgrace as well as a disaster,
and only the ignorant along with self-serving politicians want to preserve it!”
Wolff Bachner: How does Israel’s system of government
differ from that of the United States, for example?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: First and
foremost, the 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives are individually
elected by and accountable to the voters in district elections. Any incumbent
seeking reelection is “open game” for a rival candidate, who can readily expose
the incumbent’s past record—his faults or his failure to keep his campaign
pledges. No such thing exists in Israel. Shimon Peres served more than four
decades in the Knesset without any rival for his seat. It matters not that
Peres was the prime mover of the Oslo Agreement, and it matters not who is at
the helm today. Despite the 15,000 casualties resulting from Oslo, PM Netanyahu
remains in power. Why? Because he heads the Likud list of candidates, which
guarantees his remaining in power.
It should also
be emphasized no Israeli PM has ever been removed from power by a Knesset vote
of no confidence. The Knesset is only a cipher of the
Government. Likud MKs dare not vote no-confidence because that would
result in new elections, which may cost an incumbent Likudnik his job. This
means that Israeli Prime Ministers can ignore public opinion with impunity—and
they have done so repeatedly since Oslo 1993.
Wolff Bachner: What specific changes should be made to Israel’s political structure
to prevent elected officials from betraying the will of the electorate and to
restore sanity and stability to the various institutions of government?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: The only way to
do this is to replace Proportional Representation of parties by making its
members—hence MKs—individually elected by and accountable to the voters in
constituency elections—the practice (in my last study) of 80 out of 84
democracies.
Wolff Bachner: You have also expressed great concern
about the Justices of the Supreme Court of Israel, who have become a law unto themselves, acting
without restraint to limit the authority of Israel’s elected officials as they
reshape the nation to suit their own far left, post-Zionist ideology.
Israel claims
to be the only democracy in the Middle East, yet it sounds as if you are
describing a judicial dictatorship in which the legislature, the executive
branch and the voters are largely irrelevant. How did Israel’s judicial coup
d’état occur?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: Israel has not
only flawed politicians but also flawed political institutions—and this
includes Israel’s Supreme Court which has usurped legislative and executive
powers of government by its pernicious and unparalleled dictum that “everything
is negotiable.” This dictum gives the Court the power to negate the cherished
values of the Jewish people–and it has done so!
The lack in
Israel of a Constitution that defines the Legislative as well as the Executive
powers of the Government renders the range of these powers extremely vague—so
much so that the PEOPLE have no idea of what is permissible or impermissible.
Even law professors find it difficult to distinguish a basic law from ordinary
legislation. But here’s the coup de grace. In 1992, a coup d’état occurred in
Israel without the public having the vaguest idea of what was in store for the
Jewish state.
In that year
the Knesset enacted Basic Law: Human Freedom and Dignity. This so-called basic
law was enacted by the absurd vote of 32-21, i.e., with less than half of the
Knesset’s membership voting! This was an act of judicial despotism for which
Israel may thank the Court’s President Aharon Barak—
famous or infamous for his dictum “everything is justiciable.”
How has this
unparalleled judicial dictum played out? Contrary to previous Supreme Court
decisions, and contrary to objective international law, Judge Barak ruled that
Judea, Samaria, and Gaza constitute “belligerent occupied territory.” This
decision was a pure fabrication, since no state other than Israel had any legal
claim to this land—a claim affirmed by the 1920 San Remo Conference.
Here let me
digress for a moment, while the aroma of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry
still affects Israel’s atmosphere. The San Remo Conference incorporated the
Balfour Declaration. So did the 1925 Anglo-American Accord, which was ratified
by the United States Senate and subsequently proclaimed by President Calvin
Coolidge on December 5, 1925. This treaty remains in force to this day as the
supreme law of the land. Mr. Kerry’s advocacy of an Arab state in Eretz Israel constitutes
a clear violation of that treaty, hence of the American Constitution! But we
were speaking of Israel’s Supreme Court.
Wolff Bachner: How are the Justices of the Supreme Court able to get away with their
undemocratic conduct?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: It should first
be understood that the Justices can only get away with their undemocratic
conduct because the Knesset condones this evil. Most of the Justices are “Post
Zionists” and cannot be accused of being very Jewish oriented. This may also be
said of the Knesset, which voted against abrogating the Oslo Agreement. But
many MKs supporters would be alienated if these MKs conspicuously supported
Oslo. Enter the Supreme Court whose judges are garbed in black and thereby
color Oslo with a dignity lacking most Knesset Members, who often shout at each
other. And this it is that many of the half-hearted Jews in the Knesset—of MKs
without chests—let the oh-so-dignified robed justices of the Court to do their
dirty work for them.
Wolff Bachner: What can be done to restore the
balance of power between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of
government and put an end to the judicial despotism that is
destroying Israel’s democracy?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: Here is my
(second best) proposal. Let the Prime Minister, advised by a council learned in
secular and Jewish law, nominate Supreme Court judges; and let the nominations
be subject to the approval of 60 percent vote of the Knesset’s membership, but
only after the nominees have been vetted in public session as is done when the
Senate of the United States is charged with approving presidential nominations
to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Wolff Bachner: You reserved perhaps your greatest
criticism for the current Israeli Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu,
and the office of Prime Minister/ President. How are Israel’s Leaders contributing
to the political chaos in the Jewish state?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: Israel’s system
of governance has produced what eminent people in Israel—Left and Right—call a
“Courtocracy.” But Israel is also a hidden “presidential autocracy,” that
produced the 1993 Oslo Agreement which has thus far led to the 15,000 Jewish
casualties resulting from that left-wing agreement—an illicit agreement
Netanyahu dare not expose without incriminating those responsible for its
continuation as guilty of treason as defined by Israel’s Penal Code, Section
97.
Wolff Bachner: In what way is the Oslo agreement
illicit and treasonous and who should be charged with treason specifically?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: The best answer
I know of is in the writings of the late Howard Grief, a Canadian-born Israeli
attorney, summarized in “THE REAL LAWBREAKERS” by Boris Shusteff.
Editors Note: In his stunning indictment of Prime
Minister Sharon’s decision to unilaterally evacuate Gaza and uproot thousands
of Israelis, Shusteff quoted an article by Howard Grief:
“Sharon’s
actions fall into the category of actions ‘that constitute the crime of treason
under Section 97(a) of the Penal Code. In fact, the mere intention to withdraw
from any area under the sovereignty of the State of Israel is enough to
constitute the crime of treason under sections 97(b) and 100 of the Penal
Code.’”
It should also
be mentioned that Howard Grief was the author of the “Petition to Annul the Interim Agreement”
presented to Israel’s Supreme Court in 1999. Grief was convinced that the
agreements between Israel and the PLO were illegal both under constitutional
and criminal Israeli law. The Supreme Court deemed the petition “a political
position” and refused to hear the case.
Wolff Bachner: Recently, Prime Minister Netanyahu outraged most
Israelis when he decided to release 104 Arab terrorists, many of
whom were serving life sentences and have Jewish blood on their hands, in order
to get the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table.
Even after Netanyahu ripped the heart out of every Israeli
who has ever lost a family member or friend to terrorism, the Palestinians were
not satisfied. Mahmoud Abbas AKA Abu Mazin, the financier of the Munich
Massacre of Israel’s Olympic team and now Prime Minister of the Palestinian
Authority, warned the world that “there will not be an agreement with Israel
even if one prisoner remains behind bars.” Put simply, every single Palestinian
terrorist must go free or there will be no deal. And these are the people who
are supposed to be Israel’s “peace partners.”
Why is
Netanyahu releasing Arab terrorists?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: The answer is
two-fold—a matter of courage and a matter of accountability. Leaving the matter
of courage aside, the lack of political accountability is typical of Israel,
and it may be attributed primarily to the lack of a solid Constitution. If
Israel has a well-designed Constitution, Netanyahu would be held criminally
negligent for failing to enforce the security provisions of the Wye River
Memorandum which he signed, on October 23, 1998. Many hundreds of Jews have
perished as a consequence.
It will do
little good to harp on Netanyahu’s flawed character.
Nor will it do any good to attribute his less-than-heroic behavior to American
pressure—the typical excuse of shallow commentators. Thoughtful and fair-minded
individual would want to know “Why is Mr. Netanyahu so anxious to negotiate
with the murderers of his people?” If he is not simply spineless, can it be
that he simply lacks an alternative to surrender? Can it be that he is only
animated by the bourgeois concern for security, hence, that he is just a
nominal Jew—a carbon copy of the nominal Jews that re-established the state of
Israel whose President today is Shimon Peres who, when asked why he lost the
1995 presidential election to Netanyahu he blamed the Jews in contradistinction
to the Israelis? But who keeps Netanyahu in power if not the fools in both
camps?
Wolff Bachner: Dr. Eidelberg, it would be remiss of me
to conclude this interview without asking you about the alarming increase of Jew hate and anti-Israelism taking place in
Europe. In many European cities, Jews are reluctant to walk down the
street wearing a Kippah or a Star of David for fear of being physically
attacked.
Making matters
worse, traditional Jew hate, which is considered a hate crime in the European
Union, is being cleverly disguised as criticism of Israel. Many Europeans have
been quoted as saying, “I don’t hate Jews, I just hate Israel.”
What would you
like to say to the people of Europe concerning the alarming rise in Jew hate?
Dr. Paul
Eidelberg: The current explosion of Antisemitism in “post-Christian” Europe
is another sign of insanity. Don’t Christians know that Jesus and the Virgin
Mary were Jews? This means (as noted by Benjamin Disraeli) that while half of
Christendom worships a Jewess, the other half worships a Jew. Christians should
be reminded of this and what their spiritual founders (Jesus and Mary) would
think of anti-Semites–that is, of Jew-haters!
Political
scientist, author and lecturer, Dr. Eidelberg is the co-founder and president
of The Foundation For Constitutional Democracy with
offices in Jerusalem and Washington, DC.
Dr. Eidelberg
was born in Brooklyn, New York. From high school, he enlisted in the United
States Air Force, where he held the rank of first lieutenant. He received his
doctoral degree in political science at the University of Chicago. While
studying at the University, he designed and constructed the electronics system
for the first brain scanner used at the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital.
Dr. Eidelberg
wrote a trilogy on the statesmanship of America’s founding fathers: On the
Silence of the Declaration of Independence, The Philosophy of the American
Constitution, and A Discourse on Statesmanship.
Eidelberg
joined Israel’s Bar-Ilan University faculty in 1976. He has written several
books on the Arab-Israel conflict and on Judaism: Demophrenia: Israel and the Malaise
of Democracy provides a psychological analysis of Israel’s
foreign policy. Jerusalem Versus Athens: In Quest
of a General Theory of Existence and Beyond the Secular Mind: A Judaic
Response to the Problems of Modernity (Contributions in Philosophy)
apply Jewish concepts for an understanding of modern problems. Judaic Man develops
concepts for a Jewish psychology and philosophy of history. His book, Jewish Statesmanship: Lest Israel
Fall, provides the philosophical and institutional foundations
for reconstructing the State of Israel.
Dr. Eidelberg
is on the Editorial Board of Israel’s premier journal Nativ, as well as on the
Advisory Council of the Ariel Center For Policy Research. He has written more
than 1300 articles for newspapers and scholarly journals in the United States
and Israel. Eidelberg has lectured before Israel’s Foreign Office and has
written policy papers for various Knesset Members. He chaired a panel
discussion on the topic “Why Israel Needs a Constitution” at the 1997 American
Political Science Association conference in Washington, DC. He has drafted a
Constitution for Israel, which has been published in Hebrew and Russian.
During the past
few years, Dr. Eidelberg has been conducting lectures and seminars on
constitutions, diverse parliamentary electoral systems, Jewish law, and related
topics at the Jerusalem center of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy
and throughout Israel. His basic theme is: “How to make Israel more democratic
by means of Jewish principles, and how to make Israel more Jewish by means of
democratic principles.”
Courtesy of NG
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