Latest / Boots on the Ground / Why Your Vote Doesn’t Work the Way You Think — with Tamir Dortal ep 45

Transcript

Why Your Vote Doesn’t Work the Way You Think — with Tamir Dortal ep 45 · Boots on the Ground

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Boots on the Ground, where we discuss Israel's wars, politics, and identity.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: In this week's episode, I'm joined by Tamir Dortal, one of Israel's leading new media podcasters, where he hosts the show Ala Mashmood on the Meaning, where they discuss the same things as we discuss here, but in much greater depth and with much more interesting hosts in Hebrew.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend it to any of our listeners who can handle the Hebrew.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to talk about how the political system works, how elections function, and everything that no one, not us Anglers, have a hard time understanding about Israeli politics.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But first, I want to thank our partners at the Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, BeTheirIsrael.com.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: For all your events in Israel, BeTheirIsrael.com provides live streaming services so all your families and friends around the world can join you virtually.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And remember to like, share, and subscribe so you can see more of this great content.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show, Tamir.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, it's great to be here.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to have you.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we announced in the show we're going to talk about the technical side of politics and how elections work.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to ask the teacher side of you for a minute.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Give us a civics class.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm used to voting in a region for a specific candidate.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Bring me through it.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We vote here with little pieces of paper that people count, and then they get thrown in the garbage, and then they don't like give me the give me the basics first of how this whole thing works.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the techniques is like the technical stuff is where uh God is uh it like the technical stuff is where you can see the incentives.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just technical stuff, it's what creates politics, it's what creates coalition, it what uh create the incentive of the politicians uh to work for us or to work for themselves.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that every one of us that elect uh that chosen the last elections and uh now is feeling that maybe he was scammed or that the the polit the politicians didn't work for him.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: So he feels that way only because of our rugged system, which is a really unique system, like worldwide in a worldwide comparison, and that if we'll change even one bit or two bits of our system, um Israel Israel politics will be really improved and pol uh the polit the political guys will start work the yeah, the politicians will start uh uh like work working for us and not working for the sectors.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because like in America, you choose people by um by by like uh an area.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And in Israel we choose it like in a really rational way, like all Israel is one area.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Israel is small, so you don't have to have too many areas.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing that many people forget is that if you choose like in all of Israel uh and you choose only by lists like the Likud list, Ben Vir's list, Lieberman's list, and the Bennett's list, you don't uh really cho you don't really choose a specific MK recognition member.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: You choose the list.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at like number five, number seven in the Likud, in Liberman, in the Isencourt, so what are they incentives?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Who are they working for?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Who can really um influence?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who can influence their future?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: They want in in another term in the Knesset, they want to be loved, they want to be influen influential.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like who can who can improve the future?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the voters, it's the head of the list.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: In most, most most of the lists, or in most of the um flagot.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: The parties?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in most of the parties in Israel, who choose who can uh decide whether whether this guy is going to be a minister, this guy is going to be just another guy that votes with the coalition, and maybe he will get punishment for not voting with the coalition even one time.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the head of the list in most parties, except Likud.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get into that, I want to understand when we go to vote today, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the whole of Israel is one region, is one district.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: As Americans, we vote in districts here.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: The whole country is one district.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: We don't vote for a person, we vote for a party.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: But when we vote, there's we talk about voting where we put a little piece of paper in an envelope.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the most low-tech voting system I've ever seen, but it works.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: But our votes are counted, and then the Knesset seats are divvied up by percentages of how many votes you got, and then there's parties that don't cost the electoral threshold, the Husachasima.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then those votes get thrown in the garbage, they get divided up.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, they're thrown in the garbage.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So let's before before we before we get into the parties and the political incentives, I want to do a little bit of a crash course in just how voting works.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so voting works with lists of parties, not just people.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't vote for Bennett or for Eisencott or for Bibi.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: You vote for the party, you vote for the party.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Which means that you're going to get in number 26, number 39, number five.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're not going to make Smotrich inside Knesset.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to make maybe Strook or Simcharotman or people like that inside the Knesset.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And because they are not working for you, they're working for the Merikaz, like the head political guys of the Tsunudat.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like just yesterday we had like inner elections in the Tsinudat, primaries.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, internal primaries.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and in a month or so, we're going to have a primaries in the Likud.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we had last week though the primaries for the Democratim.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: So those guys are working for the one who chooses them.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: But in 90% of the parties, there's no primaries.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's there's I I I see it as two parameters and two parameters only for let's say your Isencot right now, and you're asking yourself, who do I choose to be number five, number six, number seven, number eight?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So first of all, you're going to elect someone for the list who are going to be with going to be as loyal as possible.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because Bennett uh about four years ago, he had uh a big argue with the Shikli.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: He took a Michai Shikli to his list, right?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: But he thought the Chikli will be loyal to Bennett more than loyal to his uh uh to the public.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to the ideology, to the public who choose Bennett.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and Bennett uh signed a paper, a piece of paper in uh channel 14, and he said I wouldn't uh uh uh sit with the Arab uh parties at all.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So Shikli saw this uh video and said, okay, so he signed it in my name, that I'm not going to sit with the Arab uh parties as well.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that the first parameter that you are going to choose someone for your list, if you were Eisencourt, if you if you were Libberman, if you were uh Lapide or Bennett or all the other guys, is by loyalty.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want someone to betray you and that you will uh tell the uh Prime Minister, oh I'm I'm I have five uh closet members with me for the coalition, and one will say, No, I'm I'm I'm loyal to what was promised back then in the TV.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want something like that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And second of all, which contradicts the loyalty, you want someone that is so popular that he will bring as many votes as possible.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: But this contradicts the loyalty.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because someone who is no no no gu who is like nobody, he's loy he is loyal as hell because he knows that without you he's nothing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: He's nothing, he wouldn't be there.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: But someone who has a public behind him, and that if he will betray this public, this public wouldn't go with him in the next next elections, or maybe that he can take them to another party, the the public then his loyalty is in question.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So it really contradicts so so if you look at the parties right now, uh in the future elections, you will see like big big names like Eisencourt, um Yergolan and people like that.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And other than them, all the all the other members in the list are nobodies, basically.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they're they're being brought in for their loyalty to the person and not necessarily for their their public um their public relations and who they are, their popularity.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: But this but there is another parameter they they are put in inside the list for the purposes of DEI.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: DEI like diversity and diversity inclusion and in and something else.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the diversity.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like you you you can see that you have to have a woman, you have to have someone who's Ethiopian, you have to.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have an Ethiopian woman which is handicapped, so you can also I'm not kidding.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not kidding.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: I understand.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like there are some parties that put, oh, we have a woman already.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe like in in in Bennett's uh uh list the last time he he ran to Knesset, he had uh Shirley Pinto, which is a woman who's handicapped.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: She's deaf.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Deaf.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Deaf.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: She's deaf.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: She's deaf.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um I hope she's uh still alive.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't hear from her for a long time for a long time.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that like uh to a big extent, some or some of her role is to give speeches, to listen to people, to uh to be interviewed in uh podcasts or in the in the media, but she really can't do all of that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: So in the name of inclusion and diversity, we put someone which is incapable, like she's handicapped, she's incapable of doing the job.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: But only because we want to feel that we are inclusive, we we love also the handicapped.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we love them.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: But is the best place for a handicapped uh a woman is the can I said this is the best place she can be?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is the best place she can she can like um um she can fulfill her her full potential.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say there's an argument to be made though that if a party, if the head of a party has a strong enough ideological base and he attracts people who agree with his ideology, who embody the ideology that the party is organized around, then the loyalty is to the ideology itself, and then in theory, in theory.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: In theory.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: In theory, the then he can bring people who themselves have a following, who who who embody that ideology, who have a following themselves, and therefore bring that to the party with them, the loyalty becomes less of an issue as long as the party itself acts on the ideology and doesn't just go do something else completely.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, maybe, maybe all you said was true like 50 years ago when ideology was something really strong in Israel, when you have the Marxists which were pro-Staline, and the Marxists which are not pro-Staline, and the right wing.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Today it's not true.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So today everyone likes to say that ideology isn't a thing anymore, and it's all a popularity contest, and everyone's a bunch of populists that just want what's good for them.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I've been very consistent on my own show and my arguments with Sean, who's here who I host Norma regularly with, is that there's been a I believe, I really do believe there's been a rebirth of ideological belief and activism, and that people actually care about what's happening and they're not voting for people just because they're pretty, just because they look good on camera.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're past not completely, but there's a there's a there's a growing percentage of the population that is voting based on actual ideals.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Before that, though, how does a party get elected into the Knesset?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: How many votes do they need?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to more votes if they get how many seats?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so basically back then let's go to like the basic simple stuff.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: In 1949, we had um a threshold.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Electoral threshold electoral threshold of one divided by 120.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: We have 120 seats in the knee in the knesset, and if you uh could um attract 100 uh one one twentieth.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: One one twenty.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: One one twentieth of the of the uh vote, you are in inside the knesset.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: You got a mandate, you get a seat.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So one second, just for the rest of the show and this discussion, which is gonna get very mathematical, we're gonna make the Knesset only a hundred seats.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not a hundred, we're gonna 120.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: There are 120 seats in the Knesset.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about there's only a hundred just to make math simpler.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a simple hundred percent of the vote.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So at the beginning of the state, in order to get into the knesset, you had to earn one percent of the vote.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: 1%, yeah.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And afterwards, they like put it up a bit, it was 1.2.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: It it was on 1951.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: It it did it that didn't have any sense.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you got more than you need for one seat, you you got one seat.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So right, you had like what do you do with the if you got 1.4% okay.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a full seat.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say we me and you, me and you, we we are two parties, we're a bit alike.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ben Virjos Motric, and I got I got three point five or um three point seven, okay.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and you got three point three.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I get your point three you get my extra vote.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I get your extra vote, so I get four mandates, I I get four seats in the Knesset, and you get three.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what if a party gets 0.9% or so nothing.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing happens.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to those votes?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Those votes um going to extra.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're deleted.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're deleted, and then the total number of votes gets that you need to get one seat.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're not you're not you didn't file the question.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I did.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, my question is like this Of of a hundred there are a hundred seats, so a hundred thousand people vote.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So one seat at one percent would be one thousand votes.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's if everyone voted and everything fit perfectly.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say three parties got 0.9%.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: All of those votes don't count because their parties didn't pass the 1% threshold.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do we still count a percentage of a hundred thousand votes?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it now of ninety thousand votes?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so everyone who voted for a party that didn't get in, their votes didn't count at all.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't count at all, and they are making it and they are making it easier for all of the other parties who did got more than 1%, easier to get the thief now becomes less.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Less.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Less votes.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which so now if somebody's asking themselves, oh, should I vote for maybe Faglin or Smotric, maybe they are not going to get in.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you have like a a bigger incentive not to vote for some somebody that may not pass the threshold.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: The threshold.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: So wait.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we now that's how the votes are counted, that's how we get the number of seats.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it now what what all all we said uh right now is true only to when uh 1951 upwards, but it it's only until 1992.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: In 1992 the threshold was raised till what?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: 1.5.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: 1.5.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Which is a more normal number than 1.2.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: It still isn't two seats.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: It exactly.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just beneath two seats.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: But but it's easier to calculate.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's totally like it it seems as if nobody thought of it our system until the end, you know?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: As if no no Knesset member or maybe a head of a party uh um gave a phone call to Robert Uhman and said, Oh, Rob, the Nobel Prize winner's winner Justin and Rona.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like what do you say about our system?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you're a professor of mathematics, you're a Nobel Prize winner.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have something to say about our system.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe give us a free consultant.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or or maybe someone had a really good idea that made sense on paper, but in practice was really silly.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even on paper, it's totally it's I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to No, but what what I'm saying is that in uh 2015, Robert Uman or Israel Uhman, he went to the Knesset.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: He went to to talk to tell them you're idiots.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, this is what he told them.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: The system is ridiculous.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: You you you are um uh now in uh 2015, you are uh taking this uh threshold and you are going to put it not the 1% but 3.25%, which is four seats in the Knesset.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and they were thinking to themselves, now if the threshold will be higher, the Arab parties wouldn't uh like uh you wouldn't unite together, and then they are not going to um have as much power to cross to cross the threshold, and then we are going to have knesset, which is Arab free.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: This was Liberman's idea.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the Arabs aren't stupid.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I know that some people think maybe that Arabs are stupid, they're not, they're really smart, they they know how to do business in the bazaar style of the Middle East.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: And they invented algebra, so they invented many, many things, and they're not stupid.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then they know how to make business, basically, they are the best in making business, and they know how to make business between the communist party of the Arabs and the Balad and Ra'am and the Islamist Party, and they they you they have united themselves.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: So basically what happened since 2015, and Netanyahu knows it better than anyone because he was Prime Minister basically since then upwards, is that it's really hard to run the coalition.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because okay, you don't have small parties, but uh you have medium-sized parties.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And those medium-sized parties basically they are the strongest in the coalition.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe like we have in other uh another slide that uh really puts it in a really simple way.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's think that we have three parties, one gets 49%, one gets 43%, and the re and the rest is eight percent.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you have three parties, and I'm asking you like if we presume that in order to have a coalition you have to get for 51, who is the strongest party?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: The eight percent.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: No one is the strongest party.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because everyone needs at least one other person.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And none of them has an other alternative.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: So A party needs B and C, B needs A and C, C needs A and B.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: So all of them has the same power.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this is why the uh C party, the eight percent, which is Bennett, he said, I want to be Prime Minister.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: So how can you even you know uh imagine that you will be Prime Minister with eight percent of the votes?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that seems really uh irrational.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: So Bennett was prime minister and maybe Liban will be Prime Minister after the next elections because he was the only one that uh didn't uh Lehaim, that didn't boycott.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they didn't boycott the other parties.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like Gush Netanyahu, the uh parties were were saying we are running with Netanyahu to the coalition and only with Netanyahu.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: The left says we're we want a coalition only of the left and only and we only without Netanyahu.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Only without Netanyahu, and because he has his own block and they have had their own block.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: So Bennett was like he ran down the middle.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he ran down the middle and he was free.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: He was free to choose.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: He told Netanyahu, if you'll give me to be prime minister first, I will be uh I'm happy to join you.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And but Netanyahu knew that if he wants to be prime minister, but also Smotric maybe will have an incentive to be Prime Minister, then the coalition is is like broken.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Non-manageable is not non-manageable, and you don't have other alternatives.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's it's just like a cartel.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like in a cartel, you you can choose.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: You want to you want to buy like uh a cornflakes in the supermarket, but all all the five uh brands that you see on the shelf is a cartel.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: They they set the same price, the same size, exactly, and then you you can choose.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: So Bennett says, if you let me be Prime Minister, I will go with you.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: Even if I betray my voters.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: So there's and this is the main um uh schlacha or the the main uh consequence of of the threshold.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you had many, many many small parties, let's say instead of banning Which had six, we had three parties of two seats.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you can take some of them or most of them.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then you had an alternative.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is with the threshold.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there's two arguments for the threshold that I'm hearing.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: One is you can raise the threshold much, much higher in order to create a two-party system like in the US, where it's impossible to not have a majority within one party, and then you're stuck with purely internal poly party politics, or you lower the threshold all the way down, or you create many, many, many little parties, and then you can create a coalition that includes lots of very, very sectoral parties, but any one of them can threaten what exactly they can't, no one party could threaten the coalition to destroy a functioning coalition.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if one party gets really upset, they can take their two seats and leave, you still have a ruling coalition and you have a functioning government.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but other than that, like what what I think which is the most democratic, and I follow Professor Rivlin and Professor Diskin, I'm sorry, and uh Dr.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Emmanuel Lavon, they wrote uh a paper for Cohel form, and they said it's not fair only to lower the threshold.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's also not fair that votes that voted for parties that didn't uh pass the threshold are deleted, are going to the garbage.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the next point I was gonna get into.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the next thing that we have to You you touched you touched on it before.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was called vote sharing agreements, whereas two parties who pass the threshold, they get, you know, a seat plus a little bit, and they get a seat plus a little bit, and those are extra votes.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if both parties cross the threshold, whoever has more votes gets the spare votes from another party.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And all the parties sign vote-sharing agreements like that, but it's very limited.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can only share votes with one party, right?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's only bilateral and it's not multilateral.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's bilateral, not multilateral.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you can only have an agreement between two parties, and then those two parties can't make agreements with anyone else within their general voting block.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, and if those parties have to cross the threshold.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, right now, we'll take the perfect example of something that happened in the past, and that I was involved with Moshe Faglin, got really close to crossing the threshold, and he didn't cross, and all of the people who supported and voted for him, instead of their votes going to the next closest party that represents 90% of the same ideas, their votes were thrown out.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And all the people that voted for them, in theory, are now not represented in the Knesset.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's or so that's one problem, or the votes that are shared, so from party A to party B, they'll shift over, but now party B has an extra seat plus a couple of more votes.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of those votes being able to go to the next party on the list, those votes are now thrown in the garbage.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So no matter what, there's always a vote that ends up not getting counted.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Which means in the current system.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Which means that you, as a voter, don't have an incentive to vote.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because if no matter what happens, you are the extra vote, right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the it's it's more it's more r rational to go to the beach and not to vote than to be the extra vote who will who will not make a difference.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like in all of Israel's history, like in none of the elections, one vote mattered.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and shifted a vote.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's never it's the elections have never been to the point where one vote changed the even between two parties, not between uh Ben Netanyahu's coalition, two Isencot's coalition.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm I'm still going to vote every every single time.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: But what I'm saying is that we have a rigid system and I'm really pro um taking the votes that didn't cross the threshold into account.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then like instead of uh Faglin running uh uh from one party to another to make a an agreement between him and them, then it will be like the golden prize.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Who who wouldn't want three point something mandates to to be given away to him by Faglin?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then it's not signing an agreement that that is not worthwhile in uh Channel 14 like uh like Bennett did.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then if you could give your your seats to someone else if you didn't pass the threshold, then it will be something which is um uh ta kef.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's an insurance policy.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it's an insurance policy to encourage you to vote for for parties.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: It also helps parties.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, today in in the media, um on Friday I'm having uh Yuaz Handel, which is uh you know, maybe he will pass the threshold, maybe not.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: But most of the media guys who will uh have uh Yuaz Handel, 90% of the time they will invest in asking him the qu the big question are you gonna pass?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Are you going to pass or you're not going to pass?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: Why would people vote for you?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're not going to pass, they're going to be throwing in the garbage, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which gets back to my original point, which is instead of focusing on policy or ideology that he stands for, it's all about are you going to pass or not going to pass?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And do we like you or not like you as a person and how pretty are you?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of focusing on his actual policy or ideology, which to this day I don't know what it is with Joa's Hendo.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to hearing what it is because you'll ask him those questions.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm I'm going to ask him about policy, but like I feel that most of the most of the discussed issues in Israel, we don't really have a discussion about them.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like Machloquit.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Disagreement.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't really have a disagreement.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: Palestinian state, other than the Democrats with the Yahir Ghulan, all of the other parties don't really want a Palestinian state.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um economics, you're kidding me.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like no nobody has really something to say about economics.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: All of them are populists, and maybe except of Feiglin, but like all of Israel politics is uh really really populist.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're talking only about things that uh sounds like uh nice, but uh basically they are taking money away from the uh little citizen and giving him away to the rigged system of the bureaucrats.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So in Israel we are not really talking about policies, we are talking about if somebody's nice, if somebody's not nice, whether he's going to run with uh Netanyahu, whether he's not going to run with Eisencott, and that's it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we're talking about, which which is also uh really boring, like to hear all the time who are you going to uh to be in the coalition with, and nothing about policy.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then when Netanyahu is uh now in Washington, we what what are the things that you are going to discuss with uh Trump?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not this is what not we're talking what we're talking about.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about whether Trump likes him.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Who cares if he likes him or not?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of irrelevant.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of irrelevant, and just uh like uh this week the cabinet members were voted for um taking the this peace corps into Gaza, which is basically to lose our sovereignty in Gaza.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And like me, I as somebody who really likes um um to talk about incentives, to talk about sovereignty, to talk about um um Medinut about policy is uh it's uh really um scary to to hear that the cabinet just uh voted for uh taking this uh Peace Corps into Gaza.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: So basically I think that if we lower the threshold and the head of the coalition or the head of the opposition had more power because then you have fractions of party of little parties and not like a big cartel of parties that uh are always voting together, then the sectoral parties will have less power if the medium-sized parties have low less power.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: So then you could really solve lots of problems concerning Haradim, concerning all kinds of sectors, uh concerning uh um the Israeli economics, which which like you don't have Uber in Israel only because the because the taxi driver union has a lot of sway within the current coalition.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: In the current current coalition and in the primaries of the Likud.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: So basically I think that many of our problems will be solved by technical stuff and not by you know uh a seminar or podcast like this, podcast uh like yours.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: This is not the main uh road to solve our problems, but the technical technical stuff of the elections.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you know who uh said it before me, it it was Ben Gurion.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Ben Gurion uh ran like uh in his own party, which was called Rafi, but he was the head of the Istadut.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was the head of Mapai, the biggest party that ever was voted in Israel, and he said, Oh, I'm quitting Mapai and I want to run as Rafi, and his main, main, main thing that he was running for is changing Israel electoral system in the elections.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is what he wanted to change, and nobody's talking about it.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like even the people that like Ben Guyon are not talking about that this is what his main reason to quit being a prime minister and running in his own party.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's because the politicians have no incentive to change the system that maintains their power.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: It means they'd have to work harder for every vote they get, and it would mean every vote matters.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if I understand correctly, I want to just summarize because we're getting close to the end almost.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want to summarize a little bit.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I had to summarize everything you're saying, is the system we have right now is basically broken.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that it encourages the incentives for our elected leadership aren't the incentives of what's best for the state of Israel, and it's not the incentives of the people that voted for me, this is what they want.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's more, this is what the leader of my party expects of me.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's loyalty.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: If it matches my ideology, that's easy.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if it doesn't match my ideology, I have to make a decision.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do I basically end my political career or do I maintain loyalty and end my ideological foundation?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a mixed found and there's no real incentive for people to go out and vote because there's always spare votes that don't get counted.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm understanding you correctly, then the solution would be to both lower the threshold so that every seat is a standalone seat in the end of the day.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can get in with one seat or two seats or one seat, doesn't not really that much of a difference.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: But that every party, there's vote-sharing agreements that can be multilateral and for parties that don't cross the threshold, so that even if a party doesn't make that 1%, their votes are still counted.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: They just go to a different party that's aligned with overwhelming majority of the same ideology, that vote still gets counted and still gets represented within the legislature in the future.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then we can start having real change because every single person who's voted is represented, and every party, then the the um the political power of any one party is also limited because you can have much broader coalitions that include much higher numbers of members of Knesset, so that no one party can ever bring down the ruling coalition in an easy manner, and then we'll have a much more stable level of room.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: We can then we can go back to focusing on the actual policy and the actual ideas that we're trying to fix and solve in the bigger picture.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the like the second biggest uh problem that we have in uh Israeli politics is that we don't really have a local government.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like Mushel's um um policies Mush Leon is the mayor of Jerusalem.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Musheleon or uh Nir Nir Barkat before him or Khulday in Tel Aviv, they are not really running the city.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have their own police, like NYPD or LAPD or all the other uh police PDs, yeah.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a police department, we have Mishteret Israel.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's the national police, yeah, and they have local commanders, but the local commanders are are uh being chosen by Bankville.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're being chosen they're being chosen and the responsibilities are at the national level.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, in the national level.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say in Tel Aviv you want you want to enforce um uh girls that are uh working with uh non non-modest uh uh outfit or with bikinis in the in the in Tel Aviv.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want it you you want to find them.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you want to find people that are driving in the road uh too slow or too fast.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: So it's something that only Benville can decide on, or that only the Mafkal, the the the chief of police of all of Israel, uh want to decide and not uh it's it's it's irrelevant whether the Tel Aviv's uh police policy is set at the national level or not a local level.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so if if you look at uh at uh uh this graph, right, you will see that Israel is the least um uh has least the m um local government in all of the West.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Involvement and I I look at this only by budget.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: So in Israel the um the percentage of the the share of local tax uh that is set by the local by the central government is 95%.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say you are making uh 20,000 shekels a month, so um 19 out of the 20,000 shekels is mine.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the um I'm the central government, I'm the Nisadap Nim that is uh sitting in Jerusalem, and I let you decide about only about 1,000 shekels outside out uh like in in your budget.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: But all the all the other money that like you have a big budget, but all the other money that you want to spend, let's say you want to invest in a new school or you want to invest it in the national level.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's only the national level.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the the the strongest guy in Jerusalem, it's not Mushelona or the mayor.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the mayor, it's the Misharapnim.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's the Minister of the Interior who decides how about the basically it's the local level.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: Chas are controlling all the local governments in Israel.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this is one more thing that we are not democratic in.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like the democracy is based on the notion that the the citizens should rule themselves.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: If it it have to be it has to be on the national level, okay, so it has to be on the national level whether uh IDF is going to this way, that way, he has to conquer this this part of Gaza and maybe uh things that are discussed with Trump, but we don't really have local policies in Israel.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like the mayor of Jerusalem can't really decide if he wants to um to put another um um interchange out of Hauchwim of this place that we we are in.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: He can't really decide anything.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: He can't really decide whether he wants to uh put more budget to that school or to that school.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: He can do he can't do anything.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: He has about uh 17 billion uh shekels a year of budget, but he controls only five percent out of this budget.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's which is insane.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that sounds like that's another it's another whole topic for another whole episode that we can get into in the future, and I look forward to having you back here again.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I have one question that I ask all my guests before we end the show.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I ask you to take a minute and think about what it is that gives you great optimism for Israel's future.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And before you answer me, I always want to say thank you to our partners here at the Jerusalem Media Group and our sponsors, BeTheirIsrael.com.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: For all your events in Israel, BeThereIsrael.com provides live streaming services so all your families and friends around the world can join you virtually.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I will say something.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that makes you optimistic for Israel's future?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: I will say something that uh is really uh Shannabet.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Controversial.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really controversial.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: October October 7th made me the most optimistic.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if if October 7th didn't happen, so we would face to all like we had to face the Iranian enemy from all over.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I what I imagined that is going to happen, because I already uh threat um told the Israeli uh people that it's it's going to happen.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is the big Iranian plan, is Gaza plus Lebanon plus Iran plus Syria plus maybe the Israeli Arabs are going together with the PA, the the police uh authority, the Palestinian authority, they have their own police, they have their own army.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: All of them are going together to attack us in specific day where we are not ready.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this is something that I I thought is going to happen, and I tried to warn the Israeli public uh from uh from this event, from this plan of the Iranians.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: And because Sinua was too arrogant and he he wanted the respect from all of the Arab world, that he conquered Israel, that he uh uh lowered uh Netanyahu's head.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we we had many casualties like in October 7th and in this war, but it's so much lower than I thought uh were gonna what we're going to had if the like the big Iranian plan uh could happen.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm really happy.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh maybe it's not the right word, but but I'm um I'm really happy happy that Israel survived the war because you because you you know you know what what the bigger plan was, right?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And they couldn't call coordinate the bigger plan because Sinwall was too arrogant.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: So this what makes me um maybe optimistic and um b because of the the horror movies that we saw on October 7th, so many of uh the Israelis are now really focused on on who is the enemy and who is the our friend or ally or brother because before October 7th we had like uh Um something that is really close to a civil war.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: And right now I think that even though we don't have um uh all of the things in common with the left, we still feel that there are brothers and they're they still feel because of October 7th that we are their brothers and sisters, and I don't think that we are close today to a civil war um like we were before October 3rd.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, well Tamir, thank you for being here.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, remember to like, share, and subscribe to the show so you can see more content.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Yisrael Chai.