How Fringe Factions Fuel Dysfunction in Israel and Beyond
[1,097 words, 6 minutes read time]
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th 2023, they massacred 1,195 people, 736 Israeli civilians (including 38 children), 79 foreign nationals, and 379 members of the security forces. While Israel had every right to defend itself, the scale and nature of its military response in Gaza have been disproportionate and reckless, amounting to war crimes on an industrial scale. A panel of experts in international law convened by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court states that: “Based on the material it has reviewed… there are reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant (Israeli Minister of Defence, 2022-24) made essential contributions to the common plan to use starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and commit other acts of violence against the civilian population.” [1]
While Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party carry primary responsibility for these actions it is equally clear that the opportunism of small Jewish fundamentalist parties has exacerbated the situation and has made a uniquely malign contribution to the catastrophe.
At the outset of the Israeli election in November 2022, Likud won 34 seats. Its coalition government was enabled by three other factions. These were:
- Shas, which favours orthodox religious practice and holds 11 seats.
- The Religious Zionist Party, with 14 seats
- United Torah Judaism (UTJ) with 7 seats [2] [3]
Such parties rely on religious text to determine their key policy positions and have little interest in pragmatism other than as a means of obtaining their own narrow objectives.
The coalition gave Benjamin Netanyahu 64 seats in a 120 seat parliament. There have been various fallings out in the meantime and following the Hamas terrorist attack, the formation of a war cabinet which includes Benny Ganz, former Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff. Critically, however, Ben-Gvir (leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party) and Bezalel Smotrich (leader of the Religious Zionism party), indicated they would withdraw from the government if there was to be a ceasefire at this stage. Their withdrawal—along with their factions—would collapse the government. Netanyahu, prioritizing political survival over moderation, empowered these factions—granting them unprecedented influence over security and settlement policies.
Inflexible ideological or religious thinking and a narrow agenda, even a single issue agenda, are liable to be characteristic of small political parties. Of course there are exceptions, small parties with genuine potential to grow their electoral base and an authentic commitment to good governance. But many small parties will always remain on the fringe, their eccentric character obvious to most citizens.
With multiple small parties democratic politics slides, sooner or later, into dysfunction. Coalition building becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming. Larger parties concede to the eccentricities of smaller parties. Smaller parties use their unwarranted power to collapse the system in favour of their own interests rather than accepting compromise to protect the national interest. The electorate becomes weary of the whole fiasco and blames politicians rather than the system.
In most countries where the legislature is elected by a proportional system, measures are in place to manage this problem, with minimum vote thresholds for a party to be awarded seats.
Elsewhere in this blog I propose a system which actually fixes at five the number of parties that can sit in the legislature. No restriction on the number of parties standing for election is required. The electorate determines the make up of the five party parliament by means of a transferable vote.
The dangers of small, extremist parties holding disproportionate power are not unique to Israel. In the UK, a fragmented political landscape raises similar concerns. In a recent edition of the Rest of Politics podcast Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart were contemplating the possibility following the next General Election,, by some quirk of the electoral outcome, of either Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn, becoming the next UK Prime Minister. As Campbell commented: “We are on the point of becoming a European Multi Party democracy in a First Past the Post System.” [4]
He’s not wrong. Indeed I would put it a little more strongly than that. We are on the cusp of a new level of dysfunction in UK politics. Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultan are launching a new party “to take on the rich and powerful.” [5] This seems laudable, but why not join the Greens who seem broadly to share this same objective? The likely outcome of this exceptionalism will be vote splitting, creating opportunity for Reform to come through the middle and take seats. And by the way, part of the current dysfunction in our electoral politics is the significant under-representation of Reform. This distortion fuels public disillusionment, as just over 4 million votes for Reform translate into negligible parliamentary power.
Regionally based parties, with a limited interest in a national perspective, add a further dimension to the quagmire. The DUP saw the chance to extract their pound of flesh from Teresa May’s government during the post Brexit hiatus. Often overlooked in this particular fiasco was the negative contribution of Sinn Fein, who by virtue of their abstentionist policy, utterly failed to represent their EU friendly constituency in the way Brexit was handled. But do Sinn Fein care if the UK Government screws up? All they are really interested in is Irish Unity – another project, by the way, for which I have some sympathy. Like Israel’s fringe parties, regional factions like the DUP and Sinn Féin exploit their leverage—not to govern, but to extract concessions or sabotage the system outright.
Then, of course, there is the rise of Scottish and Welsh Nationalism. Separatist parties have a legitimate case to make, but their role in the UK Parliament is inevitably subversive. They have no interest in a successful UK Government and direct all their energies into undermining those parties who are attempting to make it work.
If the Labour government truly wants to prevent the kind of dysfunction seen in Israel—or the looming chaos of an unrepresentative Farage or Corbyn premiership—electoral reform should be at the top of their agenda. It may seem a low priority amid economic crises—but delaying it only entrenches dysfunction.
Endnotes and References
[1] ICC Report of Report of the Panel of Experts in International Law
[2] Israel’s Anti-liberal Coalition
[3] Wikipedia Thirty-seventh government of Israel
[4] The Rest is Politics 437. Question Time: Farage vs Corbyn: The UK’s Next Prime Minister?
[5] BBC New Corbyn launches new party to ‘take on rich and powerful’
[6] Carruchan Blog Post Sunlit uplands: a vision for the renewal of electoral and party politics
About Stephen Shellard
I am a retired College lecturer, having worked originally in supported programmes but latterly having taught social science subjects, Psychology and Politics, though my degree was in Sociology. I am from Newry in Northern Ireland, but now live in Dumfries in South West Scotland. https://carruchan.wordpress.com/about/
Carruchan
The Curse of Small Political Parties
How Fringe Factions Fuel Dysfunction in Israel and Beyond
[1,097 words, 6 minutes read time]
When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th 2023, they massacred 1,195 people, 736 Israeli civilians (including 38 children), 79 foreign nationals, and 379 members of the security forces. While Israel had every right to defend itself, the scale and nature of its military response in Gaza have been disproportionate and reckless, amounting to war crimes on an industrial scale. A panel of experts in international law convened by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court states that: “Based on the material it has reviewed… there are reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant (Israeli Minister of Defence, 2022-24) made essential contributions to the common plan to use starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and commit other acts of violence against the civilian population.” [1]
While Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party carry primary responsibility for these actions it is equally clear that the opportunism of small Jewish fundamentalist parties has exacerbated the situation and has made a uniquely malign contribution to the catastrophe.
At the outset of the Israeli election in November 2022, Likud won 34 seats. Its coalition government was enabled by three other factions. These were:
Such parties rely on religious text to determine their key policy positions and have little interest in pragmatism other than as a means of obtaining their own narrow objectives.
The coalition gave Benjamin Netanyahu 64 seats in a 120 seat parliament. There have been various fallings out in the meantime and following the Hamas terrorist attack, the formation of a war cabinet which includes Benny Ganz, former Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff. Critically, however, Ben-Gvir (leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party) and Bezalel Smotrich (leader of the Religious Zionism party), indicated they would withdraw from the government if there was to be a ceasefire at this stage. Their withdrawal—along with their factions—would collapse the government. Netanyahu, prioritizing political survival over moderation, empowered these factions—granting them unprecedented influence over security and settlement policies.
Inflexible ideological or religious thinking and a narrow agenda, even a single issue agenda, are liable to be characteristic of small political parties. Of course there are exceptions, small parties with genuine potential to grow their electoral base and an authentic commitment to good governance. But many small parties will always remain on the fringe, their eccentric character obvious to most citizens.
With multiple small parties democratic politics slides, sooner or later, into dysfunction. Coalition building becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming. Larger parties concede to the eccentricities of smaller parties. Smaller parties use their unwarranted power to collapse the system in favour of their own interests rather than accepting compromise to protect the national interest. The electorate becomes weary of the whole fiasco and blames politicians rather than the system.
In most countries where the legislature is elected by a proportional system, measures are in place to manage this problem, with minimum vote thresholds for a party to be awarded seats.
Elsewhere in this blog I propose a system which actually fixes at five the number of parties that can sit in the legislature. No restriction on the number of parties standing for election is required. The electorate determines the make up of the five party parliament by means of a transferable vote.
The dangers of small, extremist parties holding disproportionate power are not unique to Israel. In the UK, a fragmented political landscape raises similar concerns. In a recent edition of the Rest of Politics podcast Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart were contemplating the possibility following the next General Election,, by some quirk of the electoral outcome, of either Nigel Farage or Jeremy Corbyn, becoming the next UK Prime Minister. As Campbell commented: “We are on the point of becoming a European Multi Party democracy in a First Past the Post System.” [4]
He’s not wrong. Indeed I would put it a little more strongly than that. We are on the cusp of a new level of dysfunction in UK politics. Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultan are launching a new party “to take on the rich and powerful.” [5] This seems laudable, but why not join the Greens who seem broadly to share this same objective? The likely outcome of this exceptionalism will be vote splitting, creating opportunity for Reform to come through the middle and take seats. And by the way, part of the current dysfunction in our electoral politics is the significant under-representation of Reform. This distortion fuels public disillusionment, as just over 4 million votes for Reform translate into negligible parliamentary power.
Regionally based parties, with a limited interest in a national perspective, add a further dimension to the quagmire. The DUP saw the chance to extract their pound of flesh from Teresa May’s government during the post Brexit hiatus. Often overlooked in this particular fiasco was the negative contribution of Sinn Fein, who by virtue of their abstentionist policy, utterly failed to represent their EU friendly constituency in the way Brexit was handled. But do Sinn Fein care if the UK Government screws up? All they are really interested in is Irish Unity – another project, by the way, for which I have some sympathy. Like Israel’s fringe parties, regional factions like the DUP and Sinn Féin exploit their leverage—not to govern, but to extract concessions or sabotage the system outright.
Then, of course, there is the rise of Scottish and Welsh Nationalism. Separatist parties have a legitimate case to make, but their role in the UK Parliament is inevitably subversive. They have no interest in a successful UK Government and direct all their energies into undermining those parties who are attempting to make it work.
If the Labour government truly wants to prevent the kind of dysfunction seen in Israel—or the looming chaos of an unrepresentative Farage or Corbyn premiership—electoral reform should be at the top of their agenda. It may seem a low priority amid economic crises—but delaying it only entrenches dysfunction.
Endnotes and References
[1] ICC Report of Report of the Panel of Experts in International Law
[2] Israel’s Anti-liberal Coalition
[3] Wikipedia Thirty-seventh government of Israel
[4] The Rest is Politics 437. Question Time: Farage vs Corbyn: The UK’s Next Prime Minister?
[5] BBC New Corbyn launches new party to ‘take on rich and powerful’
[6] Carruchan Blog Post Sunlit uplands: a vision for the renewal of electoral and party politics
Share this:
About Stephen Shellard
I am a retired College lecturer, having worked originally in supported programmes but latterly having taught social science subjects, Psychology and Politics, though my degree was in Sociology. I am from Newry in Northern Ireland, but now live in Dumfries in South West Scotland. https://carruchan.wordpress.com/about/