Mar 20/2015

Elections 2015

On March 17, Israeli citizens exercised their democratic right and voted for a new parliament and government. Final though unofficial results have been published and next week President Rivlin will assign the task of coalition building, kicking off a twenty-one day period for that to occur.

One hundred percent of the ballot boxes have already been counted and we can all see how many mandates each party received. But the one winner in these elections that emerges most clearly is Israel’s democracy.

Nearly 72% of eligible Israeli voters partook in this ultimate demonstration of civic engagement – young and old; secular, reform and orthodox; Ethiopians, Yemenites, people of Sephardic and of Ashkenazi origin; civilians, soldiers and yes, prison inmates; men and women; Jews, Christians and Arabs – all showed up at polling stations throughout the country to cast their ballot and take an active part in shaping their future and that of their country.

We can and should all be very proud of the fact that Israel is an Island of democracy with a rich and diverse culture and society, in a region that, basically, espouses neither democracy nor diversity.

If you think about it, Israel’s embrace of democracy in the first place is anything but trivial - during two thousand years of exile we were never able to govern ourselves fully as a people, nor had we the experience of living under a single form of governance. So for us to gather from the four corners of the earth and voluntarily coalesce under the most enlightened, yet one of the most complicated forms of governance, and refine and strengthen it, as we did, over the years – to me that is nothing short of miraculous.

Is it a perfect, fool-proof system? It is not. Did we get it 100% right? Not yet. Can we do better? Absolutely. After 67 years of existence, however, we are mature enough to acknowledge that we are not perfect and that we have made and continue making mistakes. We are open to constructive criticism, and embrace it as the only way to improve.

How strong is Israel’s democracy? The strength of any democracy should be measured, amongst other things, against the challenges that it faces, and it doesn’t get much more challenging than in the neighborhood that we live in. And so, I would argue that along with the United States of America – Israel is actually the strongest democracy on the face of this earth, and this week’s celebration of the democratic process in Israel underscored that very clearly.

Shabbat Shalom,

  

Yaron Sideman
Consul General Of Israel,
Mid-Atlantic Region