Israel to call snap election

Unable to come to terms with the ultra-Orthodox Shas party in coalition talks, PM-designate Tzipi Livni (say that three times fast) is consulting with President Simon Peres about the timing to call a snap-election.

Shas was demanding significant financial concessions as well as Livni’s promise to never negotiate the division of Jerusalem.  Livni refused, saying,

I was willing to pay a price to form a government, but I was never willing to risk the political and economic future of Israel,” she said, her comments carried live on Israeli TV and radio. “But in the past few days it has become clear to me that the current system has led future coalition partners to make unreasonable economic and political demands. . . . If someone is willing to sell out his principles for the job, he is not worthy of it.”

The election pits her against Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party.  As I’ve written here, Netanyahu is the wrong choice if Israel is going to get serious about a two-state solution.

The real problem here is that Israel’s electoral practices include even the most minor parties in the Knesset.  Most parliamentary democracies have a first-past-the-post system, whereby a party must win at least X% of the vote (usually 5-7%) to get a single seat in the legislature.  The practice places fringe parties as the focal point of coalition negotiations, giving them the possibility to extract demands they wouldn’t be able to in other countries.  Tiny, fringe Shas used it to its advantage here, holding a potential centrist hostage in the process by giving Netanyahu the real possibility of victory next year.

And when Middle East peace is on the line, we should probably be looking for a bit more stability.  Knesset reform could lead to it.