President Moshe Katzav. When he narrowly defeated Shimon Peres in the elections for the Presidency of Israel nearly 7 years ago, people were ecstatic. Some people were simply ecstatic because they always like to see Shimon Peres lose an election he expects to win. Many were ecstatic simply because a Sephardic Jew won the presidency. They saw this as a turning point in Israeli society.

President Moshe Katzav. He is now under investigation for horrible crimes that include sexual molestation, possible rape, and accepting bribery for criminal pardons. It is hard to imagine he actually committed these crimes against women (I do not including the last one – anybody can take a bribe). While I am not saying I do not believe the claims, I am saying I have no opinion and therefore give him the benefit of the doubt until the investigation indicates one way or the other, and the police either serve him with an indictment or drop the case.

It is hard to believe because there has been no indication of anything of the sort of things that are claimed against him until now. President Moshe Katzav has been a very low key person and representative of Israel. He has stayed out of trouble (until now). He has not blown off his mouth, as did some of his predecessors, most notably Ezer Weizman. He has refrained from politicizing the presidency. While he has not had an exciting term as President, he had kept the position honorable.

Should he resign? I do not think so. Right now it is just an investigation. The woman has made a claim. She has to prove he did it. We cannot force officials to resign just because someone accuses them of something. If that were the case, anytime someone did not like a politician they would accuse them of a crime. The accusation would eventually go away but in the meantime the politician would have been forced to resign.

I think it would be worthy of him to take a temporary leave, so as not to hinder the investigation. Regardless of whether it is true or not, he right now cannot function as President with such claims over his head. He is taking a vacation this week and maybe that is good enough. I do not know if the vacation was already planned or if he scheduled it because of the investigation.

Now to talk about the presidency and not the person holding the position.

It is not really a surprise that the presidency is now afflicted with such scandal. The president of Israel is elected in a purely political fashion, despite the fact that the position is meant to be apolitical. The president is meant to unite the people. He is meant to represent Israel to the Jews in the Diaspora and to the nations of the world. He is there to fight anti-semitism and fight around the world for the rights of all Jews. He is meant to, “represent national values and norms that are not politically controversial” (excerpted from the website of the President). The election is not open to the public. Rather, the president is elected by an absolute majority in the Knesset. After weeks of campaigning and dealing among the Knesset members the winner of 61 or more Knesset votes in the election takes the position of President.

Generally, at least with the last few presidents, the parties have selected their candidate for presidency by looking among their own ranks for a politician whose career seems to be going nowhere. They look for a politician who for some reason they feel deserves better than what they got, should have advanced further than they did. Somebody who they think can somehow be non-controversial and serve honorably. After all the candidates are announced, it is mostly political dealing among parties that gets one guy elected over the other.

In my mind, the system is flawed. How can we expect politicians to suddenly be apolitical? How can we expect people who have spent their whole lives fighting in politics to suddenly be able to keep their mouths shut on political issues? To the credit of the Presidency, some presidents have served Israel honorably and faithfully. Other presidents were hated because of, what people considered, abusing the office to further political goals.

How can we take a Likudnik or a Labornik and expect him to be apolitical and scandal-free? We can just look around at the political scene today and see how many politicians are under investigation and realize the pool we are picking the president from is contaminated. Of course there are many politicians who are serving the country faithfully and honestly, but look how many are not.

If the position is meant to be non-political, we need to take the politics out of the position.

First, the election of the president should not have anything to do with the Knesset. It should either be controlled by some sort of committee (also not a good idea) or it should be open to the general public. Having political parties wheel and deal to get their guy elected is no way to keep politics out of the position. Give the power to the people.

Second, the candidates should not be selected by the political parties. The candidates should be selected by the people or by philanthropic organizations or put their own candidacies forth.

Third, and most important, the candidate should not be selected from the Knesset. We should not turn to a Member of Knesset and expect him to be apolitical and scandal-free and suddenly to represent all of Israel when until now he represented a narrow sector. We should look for the most moral and ethical people. We should look for people who have worked for the betterment of the Jewish Nation. We should look for people who have not been involved in politics. We should look for philosophers, engineers, doctors, rabbis, heads of humanitarian organizations, or wherever else we can find the highest caliber people. Wherever else we can find the most moral and ethical people. That is the type of person who needs to be running for the election of President of Israel.

If we keep taking our presidents from the same pot of people we have been taking until now, we will continue ending up with these types of situations. It is a no-brainer.

If the position is meant to be non-political, we need to take the politics out of the position.

Israel’s government is in a fragile state right now. Because of all the scandals and the problems the way the war was managed, we seem to be nearing the end of the current government. People do not want Olmert to continue in his position, nor Peretz.

While people make mistakes and you could just say they made some bad decisions and there is no need to resign, that is not the case here. The mistakes were phenomenal. They were not mistakes that I claim were made just because I would have liked to see him make a different decision. They are mistakes that are obvious to all, and they were made because those in power were not capable of making the correct decisions. Therefore the current leadership needs to step down. If they do not, eventually they will be brought down, either by their own internal problems or by the eventual Commission of Inquiry.

But will it make a difference?

I am not convinced that it will. Yes, these guys have to go so it should happen whether it makes a difference or not. But we should be aware that our problems will not be solved by whoever will be victorious in the next set of elections which are looming. We may not have these exact problems, but we will have problems.

The past few governments have been extremely unstable (with the exception of Ariel Sharon’s government). As soon as they did something others in their coalition did not like, they were brought down. There is no reason to expect anything different for the near future. The leaders of all those governments were not strong leaders and they were limited in their options and handcuffed by their own personalities.

The problem really lies with our electoral system. Israel’s government is a parliamentary system. I do not know how it is different than other parliamentary systems, such as England, but it must be. The government of England does not fall every 2-3 years and require new elections, while Israel’s does (and this time it looks like it will be even sooner). Why is it different, I do not know, but it is.

The government is fractured by many small parties. The parties present a list of their candidates and people vote for the party of their choice, generally based on party platform, but also based on the personalities of the candidates in each list. As many votes as each party pulls in will make the final count of how many reps it sends to the Knesset, and how much weight it has in negotiations for the coalition, thus allowing each party to achieve more or less of its stated goals.

There are a lot of parties that run in the elections. With a minimum threshold that needs to be passed to get into the Knesset, we have ended up with a few medium sized parties (Likud, Labor, and now Kadima – by medium size I am not relating to the phenomenon that occurred in the last elections, because I think Likud will regain some of its status and return to being a medium size party) and a bunch of fairly small parties. The small parties end up wielding disproportional amounts of power and that brings about instability in the government. If the PM then steps on someone’s toes, his coalition is threatened.

We have also experienced parties turning their backs on their voters and pushing platforms that are even the exact opposite of what they promised during the elections, yet still claiming they had the mandate from the people who voted for them! That along with the personalities in the government that people are upset with, due to many of them being involved in various levels of investigation, indictment and just general bad press, puts our government in a bad situation.

So, when we have new elections in a few months or whenever, the next government formed will have its own set of problems, just as the last 6 or so have had.

How can we solve the problem? How can we improve the government so we do not have this instability?

I believe that the electoral method has to be changed. But it needs to be changed completely, not halfway like they tried a few years ago.

A few years ago some politicians came up with the idea that the system was unstable and they needed to implement direct elections. They decided to do it in stages and they left most of the system in place while only making the election of the Prime minister by direct election. In other words, a voter would make 2 selections in his vote. He would select one of two or three candidates for Prime Minister and he would select a party for Knesset. It was thought this would make the PM less beholden to the influence of the smaller parties, as he was voted in directly by the people.

In truth it was found that the situation became less stable. The PMs became more controlled by the small parties, because the small parties were given more power by the people. For example, people who wanted Netanyahu to be PM did not need to vote for Likud. They could vote for Netanyahu and Shas, or Netanyahu and Shinui or Barak and Aguda, or Peres and Moledet, whatever combination they felt like voting for.

We need to change the system to a style of direct elections. Every single Member of Knesset needs to be directly elected by the people. If an MK from Shas, or Likud, or Aguda, or Shinui, or Labor or any party represents a certain area, he will work for the benefits and interests of all members of the area within his representation. The parties need to field candidates around the country each representing a certain area or some sort of division. If the voters like a certain candidate’s personality and platform, they will vote for him. He will then be beholden to the voters and have to show progress and success or they will not vote him back in office in the next elections.

No more of being involved in scandals. No more flip-flopping on your position. If you do not keep your word, you will not keep your seat.

We need direct elections. The power needs to be in the hands of the people, not in the hands of the parties.

Until then, we are just looking at more of the same.