the point of the threshold

There is a lot of attention being paid to the minimum threshold right now. Now because of Meretz and Balad not reaching the bar and getting disqualified, there is a lot of chatter after the elections, but usually it comes in advance of the elections as they all worry about which parties are at risk and who needs a boost - should it be so high? should it be lowered?.

I was always in favor of raising the threshold to make bigger parties and more stability (which we havent actually seen help). I am theoretically even in favor of raising it higher. I would really like a two large party system with all the varying sectors finding their place within the bigger parties, and the two big parties run against each other. Essentially that is basically what Netanyahu turned the Israeli parties into anyway when he pushed in the direction of the importance of the bloc several years ago over the importance of the individual parties. if the small parties are all going to be loyal to the bigger parties anyway and not negotiate independently and separately, why have separate smaller parties at all - just merge the "right" parties into Likud and merge the "Left" parties into Yesh Atid or Labor or whatever? Netanyahu created this reality without the benefit after the elections because he still has to negotiate with separate parties after the fact that they all ran together.

I have been rethinking it in recent elections and no longer see the point. not because it is a bad idea, it isn't, but because our politicians are short-sighted and create rules to increase stability while leaving in big enough loopholes that make the changes pointless. As above, they raised the threshold but continue the style of horse trading to form a government, leaving the government at the will of smaller (but slightly bigger than they used to be) parties.

The real point that makes the threshold pointless is that all the parties that are at risk, if they have any brains in their head (which clearly Meretz/Labor and Balad did not this time around) would, and do, merge just for the purpose of elections and then split and operate as separate parties throughout their term in Knesset.

With such a simple workaround, what is the point of the minimum threshold being raised? We might as well not bother and let each party run independently as they would prefer to anyway.

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