Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that any final-status agreement with the Palestinians will be brought before the people for a national referendum. Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett, who is dead set against the idea of a Palestinian state, wants to enshrine the referendum on a peace deal with the Palestinians into law, so that when the time comes, the people can have their say. On the surface, the idea of holding a national referendum is appealing. Democracy in its truest form: We can all choose yay or nay.
In reality, a national referendum is far from simple or ideal. It disrupts the delicate symbiosis between the people and their elected officials. If a democratic country is analogous to a living organism, the people are the heart, the government is the chosen brain. The latter is entrusted to channel the pulse of the people into practical policy. The job of the people is to provide the pulse.
Many Israelis live with the pain of the conflict's tragic consequences. Many of those Israelis who don't live in the West Bank also have friends and family living there, yet will be called upon to consider evicting them from their homes if a referendum is held. The government wants the people to decide, but the people are ill-equipped to do so rationally. We don't all have the time to become proficient in economics, statistics, urban planning and international relations, and we won't all be invited to private intelligence briefings by the heads of the country's security agencies.
Let us not forget the new immigrants, those with a tenuous grasp of the geo-political situation and history of the conflict, those with poor Hebrew skills; those who are not Jewish, those who refuse to serve in the army, those citizens who live abroad and those who are simply apathetic. Surely this national referendum will include all of them, too.
On a daily basis before a referendum, Israelis will be exposed to a barrage of spins from politicians, journalists, former generals, rabbis and "experts" of varying persuasions. But campaign season is come and gone, we've already been to the voting stations. The majority has already elected its brain trust, so there is no good reason to go through another cycle of politicking and scare tactics.
The proposal to hold a national referendum is borne of party and coalition political calculations. Perhaps it is a ploy to assure those in the more extreme camps, on both sides of the political spectrum, that they will be able to stop or force through a deal when the moment of truth arrives. Doing this buys time for talks to gain traction.
There is also the possibility that the government will use the referendum as another element, among others, to factor in before making its decision, but will not bind itself to the actual result. If, as I suspect, the government is throwing its responsibility back onto the people, it is projecting a disconcerting lack of confidence in its ability to make the correct, albeit supremely difficult, decision.
Regardless, politicians flout their leadership credentials by disparaging populism, yet nothing is more populistic than a national referendum. Decisions cannot be made emotionally, our leaders tell us, "we know what's best." So which one is it-
We are woefully ill-equipped for this task, so let us be spared from it. The people have already chosen their brain trust, and it needs to do its job by filtering out the emotion.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו