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News :: Israel / Palestine |
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The Worst Knesset Ever |
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by haaretz via gehrig
Email: zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (verified) |
26 Apr 2004
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"Of those who think the present Knesset is worse, one of three respondents (33 percent) said it was far worse than its predecessors ... Fully two-thirds of the public thinks that organized crime has infiltrated the parliament. " |
A vote of no-confidence
By Shahar Ilan
Nearly half the Israeli public (47 percent) thinks the present Knesset is worse than its predecessors - as opposed to only 14 percent who think it's better, according to an Haaretz-Dialog poll.
The image of the Knesset and its status in public opinion polls has plummeted drastically in recent years, as exemplified by a huge survey commissioned by the Knesset itself in November 2000, which was called the Knesset Index. About half the respondents said that the Knesset makes them feel ashamed. Maybe shame is the reason the Knesset hasn't repeated the poll since then, or perhaps it's because the project was initiated by the speaker of the Knesset at the time, MK Avraham Burg (Labor), who believed that it was time to hang out the dirty linen, with the aim of whitening it. After he was replaced, the Knesset did no more public laundering.
A new Knesset Index might tell a very interesting story, because the present House appears to have hit a new low in terms of the public's perception of its status. This is the Knesset in which MKs have been found for the first time to be falsifying votes, and also the one that refused repeatedly to lift the parliamentary immunity of MKs whom the attorney general sought to indict. So the key question in the public opinion survey conducted for Haaretz by Dialog, under the supervision of Prof. Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University, naturally aimed to discover whether the public regards the current Knesset as the worst ever.
It turns out that nearly half the public - 47 percent - is of the opinion that this Knesset is worse than its predecessors, while only 14 percent think it's better, and about a third think it's about the same. Of those who think the present Knesset is worse, one of three respondents (33 percent) said it was far worse than its predecessors; another 14 percent said it was a little worse. On the left, more than two-thirds think this is the "worst Knesset ever," and even on the right, 35 percent agree with this sentiment, as contrasted with 21 percent of respondents with right-wing views who think it's better than previous Knessets.
Here, for example, is a phenomenon that no one even conceived of in previous Knessets, and one that also explains what sets this Knesset apart: Fully two-thirds of the public thinks that organized crime has infiltrated the parliament. Forty-three percent of the public think the phenomenon is still small-scale, though 24 percent - one of every four - believe that the phenomenon is rampant in the Knesset. Only 19 percent - about one in every five - said that the assertion that organized crime has infiltrated the Knesset is incorrect. Overall, the consensus on this question is broad: Among right-wing respondents, two-thirds believe that organized crime has penetrated the House.
In the past few years about 20 MKs have been the subjects of concrete criminal suspicions, and the poll shows that the public perceives the members of the Knesset as a whole as being dishonest. On a scale of 1-5, only one of every 10 respondents awarded the MKs an above-average grade (4 or 5) with respect to their integrity. A third (34 percent) gave the lowest grade (1), and another 24 percent gave the MKs a 2. Overall, the average grade awarded the members of the Knesset for honesty was 2.2.
`Old boys' club'
The House Committee of the present Knesset has refused three times to lift the parliamentary immunity of MKs whom the attorney general wanted to bring to trial. A fourth request is being held up by the committee chairman. Against this background, it has been claimed that the committee functions as an "old boys' club." That's probably why 81 percent of the public (four out of every five people) think that the committee should be divested of its power to decide on lifting parliamentary immunity. Only 14 percent (one of every seven) would leave the committee with its present power in this regard. Another 9 percent support the idea of transferring this power to the Knesset plenum. Overall, then, less than a quarter of the public (23 percent) think that the power to decide whether to lift MKs' immunity should be left in the hands of the Knesset itself.
Half the respondents think this power should be placed in the hands of public figures who are not MKs. Another 22 percent think that the decision should be made by a joint committee of MKs and public figures. Even on the right, 80 percent say that this power should be taken away from the House Committee.
This is no mere technical matter. Independence on questions such as setting salaries or lifting parliamentary immunity is crucial to ensure the autonomous status of the legislative branch of government. The fact that the public does not trust the MKs on these issues is trenchant testimony to its lack of trust in its elected representatives. This is a bizarre situation: Every four years the public is asked to elect people whom it doesn't trust on even such a basic issue as lifting parliamentary immunity. Overall, the public awarded the Knesset a grade of 2.4 (out of a possible 5) on the trust question. Fully 30 percent of the public has absolutely no trust in the Knesset; only 13 percent gave replies that translate into trust above the average (grades of 4 and 5).
"Idiot," "criminal," "thief," "impertinent," "stupid," "provocateur," "faggot" and "beneath contempt" - these are only a few of the epithets that MKs hurled at their colleagues in the present Knesset. The public apparently believes them. Three of every five people surveyed (59 percent) said that the insults that MKs fling at one another bring disgrace on the House. Only 28 percent think that such language is natural in a country where tension runs high and nerves are frayed.
This Knesset passed the finance minister's economic plan with its multitude of harsh decrees. The body's social welfare lobby is barely functioning. It's not surprising, then, that the public awarded the MKs an especially low grade - 2.1 out of a possible 5 - on the question of how much they care about the economic situation of Israel's citizens. Two of every five respondents (39 percent) think that the MKs don't care at all (a grade of 1); another 29 percent gave a grade of 2. Only 11 percent believe that the MKs care very much or even a little about the situation.
(c) Haaretz, 2004 |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
