In Israel. a few people that live in a small part of Tel Aviv rule. They live in one place, they meet in the same places, they and their children have all government jobs. The money men from US visit only their houses, and pey them cash. END.

Olmert should have no power in this process, he is trying to bring the Israeli consciencness away FROM HIS WAR FAILURES!!!

By allowing presidential elections, it will allow thugs like Olmert to stay in power for their entire term and to do whatever they want. These events show the real Lieberman, he is now iron fist but as bad as Shinui and will do anything to get in power.

Keep the system as it is!!! It is pluralistic...small parties get a voice as well.... the english and the us system will lead to a two (three) party system... furthermore, i dont think it would be that postive to have certain governments rule on their own and for the full term anyway.... what lieberman is doing is very disappointing...he seemed like a guy who really cares for what he believes in, but by joining this coalition, he shows his real motive: power...dont understand how he can join a government with the lefitsts anyway...

This is brilliant and desperately needed. The system as it is is remarkably unstable and keeps awarding each special interest group funds at the expense of the state. In an effort to maintain the co-alition, each special interest group flexes it's own cause and Israeli's are among the most taxed in the free-world. Most Israeli big businessmen keep assets abroad to avoid ridiculous Israel taxes. Fix the source of the problem, and there will be a dominoe effect.

I agree whole heartedly with Erez Buganim and others who see the necessity to rehabilitate the bankrupted Israeli political system. If Israel is indeed a democratic society that freely elects its leaders then by definition these leaders reflect their constituency and the Israeli public deserves its inept, deceiving and corrupt leaders. Complaining is not going to change a thing about it. Arguing and discussing politics over coffee and cake on Friday nights, the favorite Israeli pass time amounts to mental masturbation and is as effective. There is only one egress from this no win trap. Declare that the process is flawed and does not reflect the will of the people, that is to say the people desire is somehow usurped, bent and distorted due to a flawed and corrupt process. It seems that there is a broad consensus that the political and electoral process in Israel is seriously flawed and it is crucial to repair it. Leaving things as they are entail living with the knowledge that eventually the state will decline and quite possibly perish under the constant pressure from external forces combined with lack of internal strength and resolve to sustain itself. Changes are needed in four areas: 1. Allow districts to elect MKs directly, each representing its district's constituency with accountability to its constituency first and not to the party. An open and direct communication between the elected officials and their constituency can replace the vote for the corrupt party system. 2. The PM and his Deputy will be elected directly by a popular vote. The PM will appoint ministers to run each department. They are his choice and have nothing to do with the legislative branch (cannot be MK). 3. Total separation of religion and state. The state law supersedes and precedes all religious law. Unlike the current situation in Israel that resembles other backward theocratic countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and their like. 4. The time has come to take a look at a professional standing army that can answer Israel security needs and will be only marginally augmented by reservist as oppose to today's model. The IDF must cut off all the military freeloaders, and breed a new generation of thinking generals. It is unacceptable that less than 5% of the total population serves and pays the ultimate price of defending the country. Standing army is easier to budget as well.

what we need is the single transferable vote system (allows several parties to be put in order of preference) combined with constituency representation. (this may or may not be combined with a list system....preferably not) a la european parlimentary elections & how they organise things in northern ireland. this would mean israel would be divided into 120 constituencies where people would vote on the stv system (or some other no voted by stv & have rest of mks on list system.. which would be based as now on number of votes cast nationaly - this would allow for adjustments where some areas of the country would be eg solid likud and others would be nrp...etc and there would be balance made of the differences in the votes over the whole country.) and each voter would have a single transferable vote where people vote in order of preference.... this means that you could eg vote green as your first choice, then say shas or labour as your second.. and so on... when they count the votes ..if your first choice doesn't get enough votes then all their votes get transfered to the second choices etc etc until one candidate has 50% +1 vote of the votes cast.. this would be in each constituency and the winner would be the mk for that constituency. the head of the largest party becomes prime minister... i would leave the president as symbolic head of state with a certain amount of veto power... eg if the prime minister of the day wanted to give the golan heights back to syria the president would be able to veto it and insist on a referendum./or veto completely.. tho i would prefer a referendum in most cases. this system would mean that you can vote for your real choice eg green, social agenda, religious etc and then put a bigger party as your second choiceand it would also allow people to differentiate between different factions in the same party.... eg likud who support netanyahu and likud who support sharon (as it was in the previous election but one) as we would have constituency mk's it would mean that the mk would have to listen more to the people in the constituency, and would give more power to those of us in the periphery. i would also have it that the mk would have to live in the constituency at least part of the time.. in the uk the mp must own a house in the constituency and usually goes there every weekend or every other weekend to meet his/her constituents.. this includes the prime minister... who has a constituency in the north of england. imagine what it would do for understanding of the problems outside of the tel aviv "bubble" if the mk's had to meet with constituents who complained about the lack of decent schools, hospitals, bomb shelters, problems with beteuach leumi, lack of jobs etc etc every week. it might wake them up a bit. this would also hopefully lessen the power of the party central committees. the stv system would i think, lessen the number of parties, which is really getting out of hand and still give people enough choice between the various factions in society. give more accountability of mk's to the people..(not difficult as at the moment they have no accountability to anybody except their party central committee.. if then) make coallitions more stable, and give more power to people living outside of the centre of the country and make the mks more aware of the situation of the rest of us. it might also allow for a more social agenda to emerge. its not just a tinkering with the system we need, we need a complete overhaul.