Theology vs democracy

ISRAELI E NEWS

Theology vs democracy

Filed under Judaism, Jewish history & culture, Opinion Editorials, Knesset members, Religious extremism, Law and courts, Israeli society -

on Friday, May 02, 2008

By: Shoher, Obadiah

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Israel goes from one restructuring crisis into another. Socialism, successive waves of aliyah, near-bankruptcy in the arms race, ideological changes from mini-state in 1948 to mini-empire in 1967 to defeatism since the 1990s strain government’s credibility and make Jews doubt if the nation has any ideology to sustain statehood.

Democracy is a comfortable order for established societies, but in times of crises, Romans appointed dictators. Voting for personalities invokes more responsibility than for parties; Israelis who vote for Kadima might not vote for Olmert. Strong presidential republic where the president is elected directly by public weathers crises better.

Mass democracy, however, is inherently evil

Politically active, engaged populations seek to determine policies and control politicians, but such control is short-lived. People hate doing useless job, and the control of elected government soon proves useless. People hate responsibility, and political demagogues urge them to trust the government. When someone promises to care about you, and everyone around seems to concur, you also tend to concur.

Small groups are still reasoning entities, but reason disappears from large populations. The major reason for that is the mob tendency of adapting to the lowest common denominator: people shrink from offending others, realizing subconsciously that that may be dangerous, and seek the common points with them. The common point is the lowest common denominator, and for the large country such denominator is really low.

If the problems are both hard and not imminent, people prefer avoiding them. So, the sweetly talking demagogues are voted into the offices even though their promises are evidently absurd. "The dream of reason produces monsters." Any candidate who tells the unpleasant truth to the mob has no chances of being elected.

In the era of mass media, election campaigns are expensive. Grassroots financing is a fairy tale: once a candidate becomes widely known and his chances appear somewhat realistic, large donors flock to him. That is venture financing in political sphere: risks are large, but potential profits are staggering, as the first large donors would likely remain the new ruler’s closest confidants throughout his career. And so we saw German industrialists financing Hitler, and Jewish American businessmen – Obama. An honest candidate stands no chance of securing sufficient financing, as he is not sufficiently corrupt to shower his benefactors with government contracts and subsidies upon reaching the office.

In large countries with the history of freedom, mass media somewhat check the corrupt and obviously wrong policies. The minuscule Israel with a history of socialist oppression is exactly the opposite. A few oligarchs who control Israeli media critically depend on the government for contracts, permits, and non-extradition. Israeli media are therefore completely subservient to the establishment.

Democracy is a very accidental political system. It was never practised on large scale in antiquity, but only in small cities where participatory democracy remains viable. In all cases, democracy quickly eroded into demagoguery, tyranny, and then monarchy. Modern states erroneously identified as democracies are actually republics, the difference being that some basic values in republics are closed to democratic discourse; on the other hand, even theocracy allows democratic decision-making on mundane issues while the core values are kept non-negotiable. Democracy gained popularity during the Renaissance when westerners marvelled at everything ancient. Unlike the classic art, democracy remained popular because it allowed the ruling classes to rule as if by popular consent (manufacturing and twisting that consent) and provided academics with the opportunity to legitimately influence societies with social theories.

There are three viable alternatives to democracy. Two of them are biblically sanctioned: anarchy and monarchy, while the third was employed by Jews throughout most of our history - theocracy. Anarchy operates as a network of townships bonded together by mutual defence agreements, common and criminal law. The legal system is kept to a minimum, and people are free to a high extent.

Jewish monarchy is a constitutional one, where king is bounded by myriad restrictions. Short of a very bad king, such system is finely suited for opinionated Jews, whose perpetual debates and vacillations it crushes. If the king proves very bad, he can be removed both on religious grounds (as a traitor) or simply by the masses exercising their right of insurrection.

Theocracy is also not bad. Someone like Ovadia Yosef, for all his shortcomings, won’t be a worse leader of Israel than Olmert or Netanyahu. At least, Rabbi Ovadia has Jewish ideas and convictions. Theocracy served Jews well for the nineteen centuries. It wasn’t perfect, but enough that it is workable.

No realistically electable politician in Israel is better than Olmert. But there are viable forms of Jewish government better than democracy where the likes of Olmert would never succeed.




Obadiah Shoher is the author of "Samson Blinded,a Machiavellian view of the Middle East conflict," and the accompanying blog.Samson Blinded, which advocates a ultra-hard-line Israeli approach to Arab nations. Shoher denies ethnic-blind democracy and argues for expulsion of Arabs from Israel. He rejects democratic process , and calls for violent opposition to police efforts at removing the illegal settlements, dismantling the Israeli army and fully relying on nuclear response to counter possible Arab aggression. Shoher's real identity is unknown but he is believed to be an Israeli politician, writing under the pen name, "Obadiah Shoher".



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