Despite the overwhelming rejection by Likud of his Gaza withdrawal plan, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appears intent on implementing it. The public outcry against this seemingly undemocratic referendum was enormous: "How can a small number of Likud voters impose their will on the majority that supports the withdrawal from Gaza?" Politicos and pundits of every stripe have called for a national referendum to undo the damage to Israel's democracy.
But they are mistaken regarding both the Likud referendum and their proposed national referendum. The bottom line is that they have allowed their personal support for Sharon's withdrawal plan to cloud their understanding of what is, and what isn't, democratic.

Not only was the Likud referendum appropriate, it represented a victory for the democratic process in Israel. And here is why.

Americans cast individual ballots in congressional, senatorial, and presidential elections. Israelis, on the other hand, vote only once - for a party, not for an individual. To make an informed, meaningful decision, Israeli voters must consider the platform, list of candidates, promises, and previous history of the competing parties. This means that the Israeli political system can only be truly vibrant and democratic if an elected list remains true to the platform, ideology and history of its party. Otherwise, the entire democratic process is undermined.

As an imaginary example, suppose Tommy Lapid of Shinui becomes "newly religious" and decides to advance the platform of the religious parties. Though perhaps deliciously ironic, this would nonetheless be unfair to the Shinui voters who placed him in the Knesset, and an abuse of the democratic process. Lapid could, of course, present his new ideas to the Shinui membership and hope that they would go for it, but if they remained unmoved, good governance would require that he represent the voices of Shinui as they would expect, and only change parties and allegiances for the upcoming election.

For a real life example, recall that former Knesset members Gonen Segev and Alex Goldfarb abused the democratic process by abandoning the ideology and platform of their right wing party, Tzomet, and providing the votes needed to pass the Oslo agreement - all in return for ministerial positions and automotive perks offered them by Labor. Israel is still today paying the price of that abuse.

In the last elections, Israel had clear electoral choices. The Labor Party under Amram Mitzna advocated unilateral withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Gaza with the exception of certain major settlement blocs. The Likud, including Ariel Sharon, opposed this platform. Though Sharon did talk about painful concessions in return for real peace, both he and Likud promised an unrelenting fight against terror, no concessions to terror, and absolutely no unilateral withdrawals.

When Sharon changed positions and adopted the Labor/Mitzna plan, good governance required that he go back to Likud for approval before abandoning their platform. After all, if party platforms can be trashed at will by elected officials, electoral choice, and with it the whole electoral process, is rendered meaningless. Thus, the Likud referendum was the correct thing to do.

This is not to say that there will never arise so momentous an opportunity that a democratically elected leader may be called upon to compromise his party's platform. Most Israelis agree, for example, that Menachem Begin faced such an opportunity when he signed the peace treaty with Egypt. Painful though it was for both his party and himself personally, Begin decided that peace with Egypt was worth the price of returning Sinai and uprooting the Yamit settlers. At such moments, Likud can and does make painful concessions - when the benefits justify the costs.

But the Sharon unilateral withdrawal plan bears no resemblance to the peace treaty with Egypt. First, it offers no promise of peace, and its actual projected benefits are nebulous at best. And second, there is no "seize the moment" element about it. Because the plan is unilateral, if not implemented now, it can be implemented later. (For example, before the next election, Sharon can offer Likud an ultimatum - either they incorporate his plan into the Likud platform or he will change parties.) There is no justification for haste.

It is unfortunate that good governance was not Sharon's motivation for the Likud referendum. In his mistaken certainty of victory, Sharon viewed the referendum as a bypass to cabinet opposition to his withdrawal plan. In the end, justice and the democratic process won the day as Likud held true to its platform.

Those favoring a national referendum are quick to point out that Sharon is no longer just the leader of Likud; he is the Prime Minister of the entire nation, and the whole country should not be dragged along against its will by Likud. Nevertheless, as appropriate as the Likud referendum was, a national referendum would be inappropriate. And here is why.

Parliamentary democracy does not (and should not) require the Prime Minister to follow the will of the majority. In fact, if the Prime Minister followed the will of the majority, he would resign, since the majority of seats (82 out of 120) went to parties other than Likud.

When the President of Israel asked Ariel Sharon to form a government, it was because Sharon's party won an incredible 38 seats (increased to 40 when Sharansky merged his party into Likud). Now when the leader of the winning party tries to negotiate a ruling coalition, good democracy actually demands that he remain as true to his party's platforms and ideals as possible, making tradeoffs only as needed to form the coalition. And once the government is formed, this same principle applies to ruling the country.

Granted, the Prime Minister should never endanger the country for the sake of his party (as might theoretically occur, for example, if a party leader made a deal with a terrorist organization in return for a sizable anti-Zionist block of votes, though I cannot imagine such a thing ever really occurring). But beyond this, the Prime Minister's job is to implements his party's platform to the extent that his parliamentary majority allows. If citizens and parties are unhappy with the government, they can work to collapse it and bring about new elections. This, not a national referendum, is the proper mechanism for making your voice heard.

Finally, having established that the Likud has a mandate to lead the country any way it sees fit as long as it maintains a coalition majority, it is nevertheless important to question the newly accepted common wisdom that a national majority supports unilateral withdrawal.

A Yediot Aharonot poll indicates that 62% of all Israelis support Sharon's disengagement plan. But does this really mean that the majority really favors withdrawal? Ignoring for the moment potential problems often inherent in polls (for example, the wording of the poll or the particular population sampled might lead to natural skewing), let's consider the actual efficacy and impact of some important poll results:

Though I do not have the figures, I recall that all polls drastically underestimated the margin of Ariel Sharon's victory over Ehud Barak.

In the previous election, polls gave Likud some 32 seats. The real figure was 38 seats - an error of over 18%. And the polls gave Labor some 23 seats. The real figure was 19 seats - an error of over 17%.

For the Likud referendum, polls showed a close race. The real margin was 20%.
If you adjust the 62% figure of Yediot Aharonot by these margins of error, you actually find that the country is fairly evenly split with a small majority opposing Sharon's plan.

For years, certainly since the days of Oslo, the media and the pollsters have consistently slanted opinion polls to the Left by a wide margin. Rather than gauging public opinion, they have manipulated and altered it to conform to their agenda.

It is high time for the Israeli public to reject the hijacking of the Israeli political process. In the last election, the electorate overwhelmingly rejected unilateral withdrawal. If public sentiment has indeed changed, let this be determined in the next election, not by questionable polls seek to promote a Leftist agenda.

A vibrant democracy requires adherence to principles of good governance, regardless of how you feel about a particular issue. As regards Sharon's withdrawal plan, good governance requires that the current government forego the plan. To do otherwise would constitute an abuse power and the people's trust, and this can only have detrimental effects. As I stated earlier, if elected officials can trash party platforms at will, electoral choice and the whole electoral process are rendered meaningless.

Views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.

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