Our government in Miami

Granting voting rights to expats would enable them to save us

Assaf Gefen |Published: 02.13.10 , 13:58

The benefits of granting voting rights to Israelis living abroad are still seemingly unclear. The idea of granting such rights to people who will not be paying the inflated prices that come with these rights - missiles, taxes, or watching election ads on television - is certainly not a celebration for democracy (although watching our greatest patriots trying to somehow explain their endorsement of the bill, which is less Zionist than even our most leftist Knesset members, constitutes small compensation.)

Supporters of the bill attempted to claim that granting such voting rights would serve to boost the ties between our expatriates and the homeland, thereby boosting the chances they will return some day. However, after these expats will be voting for Bibi, there is no chance they will agree to return to a state headed by such a prime minister.

The populist considerations of the politicians who initiated the bill are clear and not too interesting but they connect nicely to their subconsciousness: You don't have to live in the country in order to vote for parliament, because Israel is not the state of its citizens, but rather, a state of much greater and more fluid ideas.

The first obligation of elected officials here is not to the people who live here now, but rather to "principles" and to history. This state does not intend to be functioning any time soon as a normal country that serves its residents - many of whom live here without any rights or legal status. However, the state will take very good care of the people who chose to live elsewhere.

And rightfully so! After all, we must not leave Israel up to the Israelis. why should we let ourselves determine our future? After all, how can you trust the judgement of people who chose to keep on living here?

Hence, we must take the "outsourcing" trend of Knesset votes even further, and offer voting rights to additional sub-contractors. After we are done with granting such rights to Israelis living abroad, we should add to the voters' list anyone in the world who has an Israeli friend (Facebook friends included), anyone who ever read about Israel in the Bible, or anyone who ever searched for Bar Rafaeli photos online.

In any case, we should hope that the Israelis living abroad will continue to save us from ourselves, and that they won't make do with voting rights but also establish their own expat party. Considering the grim situation on the electoral front here and the ongoing search for a "new face" that had not be tainted by local dirt, such party will likely be the surprise of the elections and hit the jackpot.

And then, from its headquarters in Miami, it will teach us how we should really be managing our affairs in the Middle East.