The human species is the most adaptable on this planet, as we can see from our inhabiting environments as widely different as Iceland and equatorial Africa. Collectively, we add up to about 300 megatons of biomass, far more than any other species except those which we cultivate for our own use. In every respect, we can be seen as the success story of planet Earth.
One of the signs of this adaptability is that we come to accept the conditions we live in as "normal" and anything else as "wrong". This is largely what allows us to go on slogging through the meter-deep snow, or in swamps hotter than our own body temperature, without stopping and say "that's it for me - I'm not built for this cr.p!".
How else can you understand Pinchas Landau's diatribe against the British and American parliamentary systems in Friday's JP. He goes so far as to say the "British system is in fact much worse than the America one". This would be weird enough if it came from a commentator who had experienced living in one of these countries, or the many offshoots of British colonial history that use the Westminster system as their model. Coming from an Israeli, however, it is entirely understandable, since he has sees the local system as "normal" and the other as wrong.
The opposite side of the coin comes from me. I grew up in the Westminster system, and since making aliyah I have been astonished at how a country that purports to call itself a democracy could possibly tolerate the totally distorted system that drives Israeli politics. There is no sense here of "representation". The Knesset is a body of people who have been nominated by parties using some undeclared and wholly private mechanism, whose membership of the parliament continues, and can be terminated, by the whim of some un-named committee. I remember once being astounded by an item in the newspaper that told us that Shas was "swapping" two of its MKs in the middle of the then current parliamentary session for two other unknowns, in order to satisfy the desire of some person (no doubt Ovadia Yoseph). This didn't make front-page news, but rather was buried somewhere near the announcement that the price of soya beans had risen three cents on the Tokyo Produce Market index (the latter story got MUCH bigger headlines).
Now, in my view of what is "normal", Israel is as far as you can get from true democracy while still bothering to have elections. They are about as relevant here as they were in Iraq (99.9% in favour of Saddam, the other 0.1% soon dead) or in Zimbabwe. Your level of parliamentary representation is zero, your MKs answer to no-one but their respective party bosses, who in turn answer to some unknown cartel of either Rabbis or Union leaders. If you have a complaint or a need here, don't go looking for someone to represent you. You've got a better chance of winning the lottery without buying a ticket.
However, Landau obviously sees what happens here as "right and proper". He can go on and talk about how British and American parties try to buy their votes by offering the electorate some benefit or other. These words come in the same week that we learned that Likud had given Shinui 700 million shekels in budgetary allocations in order to secure their support of the budget. Note here - not a benefit for something the electorate was free to choose, but what the party back-office wanted.
So now if you ask me who has the story right, Landau or me, I obviously will say that I have, since I've lived here for long enough to know that what Israel calls democracy is nothing more that the continuation of a 19th century concept dreamed up by Russian and Polish socialists who had never experienced the slightest degree of personal freedom and who saw the world through strangely distorted eyes - the same eyes that later gave rise to "Big Brother" communist rule in their home countries. They lacked any experience of responsible government, but instead considered that only THEY knew what was good for the country. They had to have elections, but constructed a system where they could allow the people to "have their say" once in a while, but still go on directing the parliament to do their will no matter what the people may have wanted. Landau may call this "normal", but I have to tell him its about as normal as a three shekel coin (or a tax refund cheque!).
