Democracy, Even When You Don't Like The Results

As you know, I'm not a great fan of democracy and have called it "the rule of the idiots" more than once. It doesn't matter whether or not you're Right, Left or Center, there will (and most certainly have) been times when the results of some elections were far from your actual choices.

I also don't think there's anything particularly Jewish about democracy; actually, the opposite is the case. According to Judaism, G-d's Laws/Mitzvot, there are strict rules, regulations and values. Humans have no right to "vote change."

When it comes to most governmental electoral systems, the regional representation one. there's a simple "Winner Takes All" principle. The Israeli system, davka, is different. Unlike the American Presidential Elections which awards the Presidency to the winning candidate even if he/she won by a handful, a fraction of a percentage, of the votes, relegating the loser to no public position at all, in Israel, there is proportional representation and the leader of the largest losing party, which stays out of the ruling coalition  is officially the Leader of the Opposition, which gives certain official privileges.

That grants representation for the losers (and their supporters) as well as the winner. IMHO, that's (the Israeli system is) a lot more democratic the American system. And I really don't understand why Israelis want to switch to a different system of government and elections.

Now, you may be wondering, what got me on this topic... It's the article by Nadia Matar and Yehudit Katzover which replies to United States President Barack Hussein Obama's chutzpadik reactions to the recent Israeli Elections.

Yes, Mr. President, this is what a democracy looks like

...He (Obama) declared that it disturbs him that many government ministers object to the idea of establishing a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel.
We would expect the leader of the Democratic Party in the United States to honor the democratic results of democratic elections in the only democratic state in the Middle East. Somebody should explain to the president that the Israeli voter has granted a majority to the right-wing camp as a result of clear-headed judgment and in light of several failed attempts to begin implementing the idea of dividing the land.
The Israeli voter has seen the results of the delusional New Middle East to which the present president and his predecessors in the White House have tried to lead him. The Israeli voter has seen the death and the terror that the Oslo Accords and the withdrawal from Gaza have brought upon him. The Israeli voter has seen how much blood the vision of the Left has cost and especially – the Israeli voter has chosen to recover his national pride and return to his culture, to the cradle of the Jewish nation, and to the living connection between himself and his land.

It's not only Obama, who has said that Israelis voted "incorrectly," It's rare for any American government leader to be pleased with the results of American Elections except when Ehud Barak became Prime Minister by using American campaign strategies and also when Kadima got in. Barak's campaign promise to withdraw from Lebanon has had negative security ramifications to this day. And we all know what a rotten, corrupt and dangerous party Kadima was for the State of Israel.

The Israeli Left has also insulted the Israeli voter's intelligence by refusing to acknowledge that its loss was because the Israeli public will no longer believe the lies of the Left. Even many who vote for Leftist parties to be in Knesset tell the polls that they want Netanyahu as Prime Minister and not Herzog, Yachimovitch or Livni.

Remember that when voter says that he/she is sorry that his/her party lost it's one thing, but when it's a foreign leader, it's an imperialistic interference in the domestic affairs of a foreign country, which is unacceptably immoral.

The American President must recognize that ordinary Israelis know a lot more about the needs of the State of Israel than he could ever comprehend.