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> The reality is that Israeli parliament is weak and nearly wholly controlled by the government. You have it exactly backwards: the government is selected from

by maratc 3y ago

> The reality is that Israeli parliament is weak and nearly wholly controlled by the government. You have it exactly backwards: the government is selected from the MPs and is supported by the parliament. The most popular way to change a government is to call for (legislative) elections. (No executive elections — these were tried for a short period and cancelled.) The government is controlled by the parliament, not the other way around.

underdeserver 3y ago
The government is chosen by the Knesset, and the prime minister is a member of Knesset - and usually, his entire cabinet is also made up of MKs of coalition parties. So a >50% coalition in parliament is equivalent to a government. However, there is the 49% of parliament that constitutes the opposition. Israel used to have norms where the opposition had some balancing power. Today they have absolutely none. There are no checks and no balances on the government/parliamentary majority except for the courts.
- weard_beard 3y ago
  so you are, literally, both correct. The legislative has never been weaker (minority) and never been more authoritarian (majority). Glad we can all agree on something.
- maratc 3y ago
  > Israel used to have norms where the opposition had some balancing power. Israel is a parliamentary democracy, and the power is vested with the majority of the parliament. As it is with any other parliamentary democracy, which is the preferred system across almost all of Europe. (We can add "parliamentary constitutional monarchies" where the monarch does not have any real power to that list.) I also don't see what "balancing power" had any opposition have in the past. The coalition (majority) tries to advance some issues while the opposition (minority) tries to torpedo them. It has always been that way, there is absolutely nothing new here.
fortzi 3y ago
The government being able to fire an MP from being a minister in the government is a strong deterrent against this minister from voting against the coalition. The coalition and the government are one, in effect, mainly due to coalition discipline. A good example of that is the recent vote for elimination of Reasonability, where all of the members of the coalition voted for it. Do you honestly believe there's no one person in the coalition who opposed it?

by maratc 3y ago

underdeserver 3y ago

The government is chosen by the Knesset, and the prime minister is a member of Knesset - and usually, his entire cabinet is also made up of MKs of coalition parties. So a >50% coalition in parliament is equivalent to a government. However, there is the 49% of parliament that constitutes the opposition. Israel used to have norms where the opposition had some balancing power. Today they have absolutely none. There are no checks and no balances on the government/parliamentary majority except for the courts.

weard_beard 3y ago
so you are, literally, both correct. The legislative has never been weaker (minority) and never been more authoritarian (majority). Glad we can all agree on something.
maratc 3y ago
> Israel used to have norms where the opposition had some balancing power. Israel is a parliamentary democracy, and the power is vested with the majority of the parliament. As it is with any other parliamentary democracy, which is the preferred system across almost all of Europe. (We can add "parliamentary constitutional monarchies" where the monarch does not have any real power to that list.) I also don't see what "balancing power" had any opposition have in the past. The coalition (majority) tries to advance some issues while the opposition (minority) tries to torpedo them. It has always been that way, there is absolutely nothing new here.

fortzi 3y ago

The government being able to fire an MP from being a minister in the government is a strong deterrent against this minister from voting against the coalition. The coalition and the government are one, in effect, mainly due to coalition discipline. A good example of that is the recent vote for elimination of Reasonability, where all of the members of the coalition voted for it. Do you honestly believe there's no one person in the coalition who opposed it?