Modest Step Toward Electoral Reform?

The Israeli Cabinet is set to propose a bill that if passed into law would be a modest step toward badly needed electoral reform.

The measure includes raising the electoral threshold to 4% -- I'd like to see it higher but this would be a good beginning.

It would limit the number of cabinet ministers to 19 and it would require that 61 Knesset members support a vote of no confidence.

In sum, it would foster a less parochial, more centrist, more stable, more efficient government and could strengthen the Knesset. Now, so many MKs are also ministers or deputy ministers that legislative oversight of the executive is weak.

I'd still like to see half the Knesset elected on the basis of constituency representation.

File Under "The masses are asses."

Curious, troubling, survey released by Fairleigh Dickinson
University’s Public Mind on Wednesday finds that 29 percent of
Americans think that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years -- five percent unsure.

Here is the press release:
http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2013/guncontrol/

Mechina Academies: Israel's Gap-Year Phenomenon"

My latest piece, "Mechina Academies: Israel's

 Gap-Year Phenomenon" 

now available to subscribers of the

 Christian Zionist magazine

 "Israel My

 Glory

"http://www.foi.org/magazine/  

May/June issue

'Depressed,' 'Sad,' Childless Men?

Here's a study that's garnered lots of attention.

"Researcher Robin Hadley carried out a survey of 81 women and 27 men who did not have children, and asked them if they wanted them. He found that men were almost as likely as women to want children — 59 percent to 63 percent — but actually more likely than women to feel depressed, angry and jealous if they didn’t have them."

Now, I have no way to evaluate the validity of the thesis which claims that men who want children but don't have any feel more isolated, depressed, even angry than women similarly situated.

Sociologist Robin Hadley of Keele University (which is located in North Staffordshire halfway between Manchester and Birmingham) acknowledges that his results are in no way a statistical representation of British society.

I'm not surprised by how much attention the results of Hadley's online questionnaire has earned.

The reason may be that men's feelings and attitudes about being childless are seldom explored.

Abbas Inflames the 'Street' -- Adheres to intransigent negotiating line

Tension high today in Jerusalem in advance of funeral of Hamas terrorist -- he planned to blow up the Caffit cafe on Emek Raf'im -- who died of cancer in prison.

It's a tension orcastrated by the Palestinian leadership or leaderships.

Fatah chief Mahmoud Abbas is meanwhile telling US Sec of State John Kerry that he will give the US about a year to pressure Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, accept the "right" of Palestinian Arabs and their descendants who became permanent refugees to "return" to a truncated Israel -- or he will seek these same goals via the automatic majority the Arabs enjoy at the UN.

So Abbas and Hamas compete for the Palestinian Street by ratcheting up anti-Israel violence. While Abbas collects his salary from well-meaning Western donors.

Too bad Abbas  isn't interested in a peace deal. Too bad he won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

With all the chaos in the Arab world too bad Abbas is not a force for genuine moderation.