Several thousand demonstrators demanding electoral reform greeted Knesset members with jeers and catcalls as they drove up to the gates for the opening of the summer session Monday.
Police and Knesset guards kept order, but the message was clear.
Placards reading “Bribe-takers!” and “Go home!” left no doubt that the public is fed up with a system that has left Israel without a government since March 15.
Anger built up over the long Pesach recess, as the two major parties offered all manner of inducements, in fruitless efforts to entice minor parties to join them in fragile, narrow coalitions.
Little more than a week ago, on Independence Day, petitions bearing a half-million signatures were presented to President Chaim Herzog, urging him to initiate changes in the electoral process.
Now two Labor members of the Knesset, Avraham Burg and Haggai Meirom, have submitted a private members bill, calling for a presidential commission to review proposals for electoral reform.
They propose a 15-member panel, chaired by the president of the High Court of Justice. It would have the legal powers of a juridical commission of inquiry, able to call witnesses and take evidence.
The commission would submit its recommendations to the president and the Knesset.
Parliament would decide by roll-call vote which reforms to adopt, and would then dissolve itself. Elections would be held under the new system.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
