One of the reasons for short Governments in Israel might be its high number of parties. After the last elections the Parliament - Knesset - consists of ten parties. Therefore the only possible type of a majority Government is a coalition, where parties contradicting political views must be settled to a common program.
That is not, however, very different from Finland, where we have nine parties and a representative of autonomous island, Åland, in the Parliament. Therefore, also our Governments are coalitions, but last typically throughout the four years between elections.
So what is the difference between Israel and Finland? Is it the big number of religion-based movements in Israel, whereas in Finland the only religion-based party has only five seats out of the 200?
As we all know, religions have separated people throughout the history, and formed at least part of the motivation in countless number of wars. Or is it the fact, that Israel is surrounded by hostile nations, that cause pressure on the Jewish state?
It is, however, true that also Finland has a hostile neighbor, as the war in Ukraine has demonstrated. And therefore foreign policy unites Finnish political parties almost throughout the political spectrum. And that policy is also supported by a clear majority of ordinary people: for example a total of 79 percent of Finns support the NATO application currently in progress.
In contrast, there is an ongoing struggle in Israel policy towards Arabic nations and Palestinians. The previous Government supported a two-state solution whereas Netanyahu stands for an Israel including also the West Bank traditionally inhabited by Palestinians.
Naturally I am not the right person to tell Israeli what to do - they must decide themselves. But according to my view the eternal conflict between Jews and Arabs in near east looks like a problem caused by two nations, neither of which has common sense for solutions.
The solution could be somehow copied from post-world-war Finland. We then accepted that Karelia was lost forever, and - instead of looking for impossible revenge - started a fruitful collaboration with Soviet Union by taking advantage on trade with our big and potentially dangerous neighbor. But at the same time kept our military readiness high.
Such a model would have two scenarios in the Holy Land. For Palestinians: stop dreaming about pushing Jews to the Mediterranean sea, stop the violence caused by your own trouble makers (calling themselves freedom fighters) and look for fair economic collaboration with Israel. That could be done equally well as a part of Israel or as an independent Palestine. Army would not be needed or - in the case of an independent Palestine in the West Bank - its strength could be relatively low via a security agreement (guarantee) to be negotiated with Israel.
For Jews the situation would be more complicated. They should naturally offer acceptable rights to Palestinians including equality against the law, and also promote economic collaboration with the neighboring Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. But also demand that the three last ones agree on peace agreement in a similar way as Egypt has done.
And in all cases, Israel should definitely keep its unquestionable military superiority compared to the Islamic world.
Previous thoughts on the same topic:
