We have a horrible "form" of government the worst of which is the long-ingrained party system. Horrible. No personal responsibility to the electorate. What we have now is a mirage of real democracy where I go to the polls vote for a block of unknown people who have no responsibility to me, the voter, and then go do whatever they want for the benefit of their party for the next four years or so. They never ask me anything about what I think - between elections. So, who really represents me and my concerns? Who can I call up and say, "You represent me, here is my problem, help?" No one.

Political fortunes change, and my hope is that when the right is in opposition, they will regret having passed this bill. Their next move is to outlaw any criticism of cabinet ministers, and soon we will find ourselves no longer able to boast that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle east.

When you say that Ynet revealed a document by which "coalition party leaders have been ordered to vote in favor" of the 3 bills. It would be more accurate to say that the "coalition party leaders agree to vote together in favor" of the 3 bills. Who ordered them?

Israeli politics is a real mess. Sadly nothing will change as it might bring democracy to the only"democratic"country in the Middle East.

I could no longer attempt to live under the pervasive threat of death there as i do here and here, we have freedom of religion and freedom of speech, your government's longstanding history of corruption precedes you and thus I shalllive here.

Finally we can have a real working government, that won't be blackmailed by small parties. Past elections have caused nothing but havoc, hope this works, Less ministers is also a good thing, less people taking my hard earned money as taxes for their own pockets. Now pass the law to draft the religious and things can only get better

What was the previous electoral threshold? I'm curious and you would think the author of the article would include what it was raised from.

We have way to many little single issue parties that exist for the sole purpose of joining coalitions and gaining a disproportionate amount of power. The result is that the real power in the Knesset are in the hands of the little parties. Raising the threshold would weed out some of the single issue parties. The arguments about how its bad for democracy etc are the same ones made when it was raised from 1% - 2% in the 80s where the single issue parties moan because they will no longer be there to bring down governments for their own selfish reasons. The biggest winners from this if they get their act together will be the likes of Balad which is what the government wanted to do something about. Instead of 3 arab parties with 3-4 seats each constantly bickering if they merge and form a single party with about 10 seats they will have for the first time the political muscle to demand to join leftist coalitions and they will be in a position to undermine the state from within the coalition itself. If this plan was to do something about the trouble making arab parties this bill might backfire and give them real power.

And is used is many democracies such as the UK! As far as I know, to change the Basic Law the Government needs a two thirds majority so these laws won't fly in the High Court of Justice. As for the Opposition boycott, they are behaving like spoiled brats! You don't fight by boycotting. You make yourselves heard!

Can you please tell us what the current Knesset would be if the percentages approved now were in place during the last elections?

The electoral threshold was raised today to 3.25% and was previously 2%. Yesh Atid!