The results of the February 10, 2009 election contained an interesting twist relevant to this day.

Election results in detail

While Tzipi Livni’s left-wing Kadima Party won 28 seats, Benjamin Netanyahu’s reputedly right-wing Likud Party won only 27 seats.

However, the Likud had the support of Israel Beiteinu (15 seats), Shas (11 seats), United Torah Judaism (5 seats), National Union (4 seats), and Jewish Home (3 seats), yielding a total of 65 seats, enough to form a Government.

We also need to mention the Arab parties which won 11 seats. Since the left-wing parties won 44 seats, add the 11 seats won by the Arab parties and you then have a coalition of 55 seats opposed to the Netanyahu Government.

A hypothetical replay

Now, for the purpose of this article, I am going to ignore the role of the President in the selecting the party to form a government and construct a purely hypothetical state of affairs.

Suppose Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the Israel Beiteinu Party, concocted a deal with Kadima leader Tzipi Livni. The Left would then have had 59 seats. The Arabs, with 11 seats, would then give the Left a “blocking majority,” so that Livni would become the prime minister of a leftwing coalition government!

This sort of thing happened in the June 1992 election. Labor–Meretz won 56 seats, which enabled the Arab parties, with 5 seats, to give the Left a blocking majority over against the nationalist and religious parties which had won 59 seats. (Shas joined Labor-Meretz to make the government kosher, and that led to Oslo.)

Why does the election system fail?

Now, what is the lesson to be gleaned from the results of the 2009 Israeli election and the hypothetical replay of the 1992 election? Is it merely that Israel’s electoral system is a “failure,” as was indicated by former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief David Horowitz? If so, a failure in what respect?

• Is the system a failure because the election did not yield a clear winner who can stand as the nation’s choice of prime minister? Many people would say this.
• Or is it a failure because the Arab vote could hypothetically decide who would be Israel’s prime minister? Hardly anyone is saying this. (But even those who say this touch only the surface of Israel’s systemic malaise.)

Do Israel’s ruling elites, be they politicians or judges, academics or journalists, comprehend the irrationality of Israel’s system of government, more precisely, its alogical principle of “one adult, one vote”?

Do they realize that democracy’s most fundamental principle of “one adult, one vote” is tantamount to “one opinion, one vote,” which, in practice, makes contradictory opinions equal?

Can they understand, therefore, that the democratic principle of “one adult, one vote” is, in practice, alogical?

Do they understand that, according to Freud, the alogical has its home in the unconscious? Let me explain by way of psychiatrist Ignacio Matte-Blanco.

Misapplication of symmetry

If Peter is the brother of John, then John is the brother of Peter. The relation is symmetrical. But if Peter is the father of John, then John is the son of Peter. The relation is asymmetrical.

Now, Matte-Blanco shows that making that which is asymmetrical symmetrical is symptomatic of schizophrenia. (I enlarge on the subject in my book ‘Demophrenia: Israel and the Malaise of Democracy’).

The principle of symmetry manifests itself in democracy via the principle of equality. As democracy becomes further removed from the aristocratic and religious tradition, its principle of equality becomes indiscriminate. Thus, we see in Israel that no distinction is made between loyal and disloyal citizens concerning the right to elect or be elected to public office. In other words, loyal and disloyal citizens have equal rights in forming their government!

Moreover, throughout the democratic world we see the phenomenon of moral equivalence, which puts Hamas on a par with Israel. In fact, moral equivalence often degenerates into moral reversal, to Israel’s disadvantage. This is not only nihilism: it’s insanity!

End of an era

This insanity-cum-nihilism is symptomatic of the end of the democratic era. This era began with the Enlightenment and is ending in Darkness.

We are witnessing insanity-cum-nihilism throughout the most “civilized” and scientifically advanced countries in the world – in Europe and in the United States. I see it among Israel’s educators and ruling elites, at least among those who are tainted by multicultural moral relativism.

Since elections in Israel are manifestations of indiscriminate equality, they exhibit insanity-cum-nihilism. We are thus witnessing the end of democracy and of Western civilization.

A lot of people feel this, especially thoughtful Jews, the only people having a universal history. As I see it, the Israel of tomorrow, if liberated from the indiscriminate or idiotic principle of one-adult/one-vote democracy, is the only hope of mankind.☼