Anything is an excuse to vent his hatred. No facts needed for this sort of thing. Creative hack writers turn everything into a C grade novel.

A B Michael piece i actually agree with bits of? where is the whiny, anti-Israel screed we are used to?

even with all your election mess Israel should still be proud to be the only democracy in the entire middle east...a simple fix would be to have a run off election if no party wins a majority...top 2-3 parties can run and that would settle it...

It's amazing to see that after the crushing defeat of the hard left, the media still pushing the Commie agenda as if nothing happened. Stalin is so deeply embedded in the media that not even a quassam could blow it away from their small skull. This guy B. Michael is obsolete, only Haaretz would love him.

Naah...BOTH. I agree that the available pool of material is lamentably small, but so is the population and don't forget the loss through "Brain and Bucks Drain". That doesn't mean the current form of government is either desirable or efficient. In fact it is not. It encourages "fiefdoms" and the monetary and "Quid Pro Quo" abuses. I believe a more representative form of government is a better one. I could be wrong. If Israel had 2 or 3 people competing for each post (Knesset or Executive branch), people would have more control.... Also, the "functionaries" and party hacks that get in the current way might not in a more representative method. Just my opinion.

stability is very important. how can a leader make decisions when his government can collapse if one or other faction of his coalition can split at anytime?

"council", where U get "any pensionerim smoking pot", BUT 4 normal life U need "parlament" aka "knesset" , not circus where 12 partys for 120 places TRY find some point together....

Direct vote for the PM broke the mental monopoly on the electorate. A voter could cast his call for the PM and another for the direction. The two large parties became small and a number of tiny parties became medium size. Part of the 28/27/15/13 problem is that voters still feel "free" to vote for small parties that seem to have better sway. So the problem is not "ultra fundamentalist extreme" right or left. But rather an end to fantasies sold by the PLO kissers and empty promises that rockets will not be shot at us. In 1999 a politician in Labor said, "now we will know if we will have peace or will have to live by the sword." Arafat gave the answer less than a year later. Ten years later the Israeli electorate realized what the answer was. Besides its not the system but the electorate stupid enough to vote for Green/Green Movement/Green leaf/nasty old men parties and wasting their vote.

First of all, there is no "occupation" per se- the West Bank is considered Terra Nullius and Israelis have as many legal rights to live there (probably actually more legal rights) than Arabs. Second, the bias inherent in this article couldn't be more obvious. Swallowing Arab rhetoric and regurgitating it under the guise of Zionism isn't intellectually honest at all and if this person is somehow supposed to be an ambassador of Israeli intellectualism, I think I can spot what the real problem in Israeli society is. "A fish stinks from it's head" goes the old Yiddish saying and it's sad how the cultural elite in Israel refuses to look itself in the mirror and point the finger at the real culprit for the woes it finds in Israeli society- itself.

Hows this: "Of course, we must also not mention the axiomatic historical decree that any occupying society – any society that crushes others – will ultimately be eroded, corrupted, and radicalized to the point of collapsing." What 'occupation"? What's being occupied? Who's crushing and why? This paragraph effectively indicates just where Mr Michael's sentiments lay. He has more time and sympathy for his enemy, slamming his own not in an even, justified way. More like a continual assault against commonsense and the failure to apply the same scrutiny and criticism to the enemy and its undoubtedly, massive contribution to ongoing conflict. Its like what ever the pals do - it doesn't matter. B.Michael: high faluting , pompous, devoid of commonsense, hypocrite. Absolutely entitled to his opinion, but sadly, massively full of shit.

Here's reality: The Israeli public overwhelmingly rejected the delusions of the left. It desires a leadership which will act to defend Israel in an active manner. The left, which left us to be defended by a man such as Amir Peretz, has failed utterly. Peretz is gone-and now Olmert and the rest of the left is gone as well.

The one distinguishing characteristic of a democracy is that, unlike any other form of government it acturately refvlects its citizenry. The reason why we have a government without vicion or direction and interested only in their personal enrichment is because that is the kind of population we have. I am not implying that Israelis are crooks, its just that the politicians can't enrich themselves leagally, they would if they could. But what they don't want to do is tackle the country's problems, and the population doesn't want that either. For the first forty years of the country's existence nationalist politicians, men and women of vision offered Israel a difficult way to solve theri problems, theough struggle and hardship and conflict, and they grudgingly bore these hardships. Then Rabin, Peres, and Sarid, also men of vision, offered them the easy and pleasan post-zionistt way to solve their problems, and they gladly took it, discarding the nationalists That road, as it turned out, led to death and terror, they tried it again under barak to make sure, and then they decided they didin't want to take the post-zionist road any more. Bit they didn't want to take the hard road of the nationalists anymore either, which his why they couldn't bring themselves to put anyone to the right of Netanyahu at the head of the Likud. They offered overwhelming support for Kadima and its Labor allies in the last election because they thought that if self-proclaimed nationalists led them down the easy post-zionist road it would turn out differently. But now,, having found out that the easy road doesn't work no matter who is at the head they stilll cannot bring themselves to go back up the hard road, So instead they have decided to abandon all ideology and all vision, and elect a government that will be completely politicaly dead locked. Instead of going down the difficult road or the sucidal road they decided to just stay in the same place and go about theri daily lives fretting about the economy, and so we have today's election results. Oh, by the way Mr. Michael, Rome, the Arab Chaliphates, IMperial Britain, America, and all the other great societies of history spent the whole of their multi-century histories occupying other nations. The nations they occupied, on the other hand, have left virtually no mark on history and are nowhere to be found to this day. Do you see any Samnite, Dacian, Scythian, Thracian or Carthiginian culture around Mr Michael?

He is so so right in his analysis its time for brainstorming how to save our society because we are moving further away from realising the dream everyday. I came here 60 years ago and in wildest dreams did not imagine we would come to this.

To Zelda: As an American Jew, I cannot really empathize with your views. Even though no longer bound to a ghetto or pale, we Jews are disappearing at an increasing rate here, through assimilation and intermarriage. Israel now has almost as many "Jews" as US., no intermarriage for obvious reasons, and where is there to assimilate? Yes, you have your divisions, as suggested by this article. I ask, why? The entire Muslim and Arab world wants your necks. The so-called occupation (I thought the IDF withdrew from Gaza), recurs at times thanks to the PALIS violence. Israel offered the Palis a state (or autonomy) after EVERY war THEY started., thwarted by THEIR outrageous demands (return of refugees, E. Jeru, etc.). In fact, considering the above AND the potential of a 5th column, Israel has done remarkably well., it's economy booming (for a small country w/o oil), it's army (albeit restrained) still the best man for man in the world. Any other miniscule county would have (see: Kuwait), been destroyed years ago. Bottom line: Israel, to help itself, should look at it's parliamentary system of gov't, tighten it's sedition and treason laws, get past Shalit (his kidnapping is part of the 100yr war), start on a constitution which defines the State (a theocracy or what?), gets the rabbis out of the marriage control business, reaches out to Diaspora Jewry, draws red lines for it's borders, and starts becoming pro-active, rather than reacting everyime Abbas or Hamas farts. Yes, Israel has problems..but it is not Norway or Denmark or New Zealand. It's just the way it is., Zelda.

Even without a ruler or compass, it's hard not to get the impression that the extended process of delegitimizing the settlers - which leads to genuine hatred of them - is hitting a peak. The left wing and the media have now labeled the settlers, as a group, as the abhorred Other that people are allowed to smack around. There are settlers who break the law, just as there are lawbreakers who are Palestinian, ultra Orthodox, politicians, Druze, Israeli Arabs, left-wing anarchists and others. The problem arises when the law becomes a way of marking an entire population as illegitimate. More about correctness : http://xrl.us/bi5da

Cowardly people who are prepared to give away the heart of Israel to our sworn enemies feel threatened by fellow countrymen who represent bravery and a will to survive. For post-Zionists like Peres, the woman who happily raises her kids in Judea and Samaria is a constant reminder of his own gutlessness, leading him to develop a burning hate for the pioneering and strong 'Jew'. Nowaday, the religious settler is the emancipated Israeli, bedecked with side locks and tzitzit, and armed with the classic fundamentals of Zionist ideology : to ingather, to build, and to settle the land of Israel. More at: http://xrl.us/bj5ng

The religious parties caused the Soviet Union to collapse, sunspots, and the extinction of the dinosaurs. Netanyahu caused the global financial collapse and recession. Why do Israeli Jews cause so much trouble in the world?

The people in the government are also to blame. However, their behavior is ENCOURAGED by the parliamentary system. When you reform the system, the political wannabees will reform with it.

"Of course, we must also not mention the axiomatic historical decree that any occupying society – any society that crushes others – will ultimately be eroded, corrupted, and radicalized to the point of collapsing. " I do get tired reading the insistent claptrap of the left. Israel is not an occupying country, it is one under the sentence of death by neighbors who have repeatedly attacked it, and by territories it cannot get rid of because of the hatred of those same external and internal neighbors. We have tried leaving unconditionally, It seems to have worked "extremely well" in Gaza. Leon

We can debate, blame, etc. The bottom line: there is no country with a better system, and a jewish country. American jews, complain about Israel but not too happy in the US. Enough! Either you stand with Israel or go assimilate, stay jewish, who cares. Israelis, the future of world jewry in in Israel, be glad we have a country, stop complaining about the "system", fight for what you have and keep it safe and sacred. There is no perfect country, not even close. US is not an option or perfect, no way..........it's in the tank and it's a sinking ship. If you are an american zionist jew, make alia, do not be a Monday morning quarterback. That's Israel's biggest problem, every jew is a prime minister.