Israel is a first-world country with a third-world electoral system

As of this writing, former Israeli militia Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc of parties is on pace to win 48 Knesset seats in Israel’s election, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc is on pace for 56. Neither coalition has enough to form a parliamentary majority.A number of things could happen.Netanyahu could invite one of the opposition parties into his bloc by offering it an important seat within his government. Or he could offer his main rival, Eisenkot, a seat at the table and create a national unity government. Such alliances have briefly worked in times of crisis. Typically, however, they’re a disaster. Imagine Donald Trump and Kamala Harris sharing power in a governing coalition.Netanyahu also has the option of allowing the stalemate to persist. This might be his best option. In that case, the Israeli president typically gives the candidate with the best chance of forming a coalition a month to do so. If that candidate fails, the opposition leader is offered the same opportunity. If neither can pull together 61 seats, the Knesset is dissolved and new elections are called. In the meantime, Netanyahu would remain the caretaker prime minister.Eisenkot, on the other hand, has not dismissed the idea of joining with Israeli Arab parties, as long as they recognize Israel as a Jewish state and Hamas as a terrorist group. This year, Israeli Arabs voted in historic numbers. (Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Arabs can vote in a free election.) The two Arab-majority parties, the communist Joint List and Islamist Ra’am, are on course to win 19 seats. If they join the “change” parties, they would have a clear majority.Any governing coalition that includes parties whose goal is to weaken or destroy the Jewish state, as most in the Arab bloc explicitly do, would surely be trounced in the next election or lose existing parties within its coalition.There is also a chance that the center-left parties could form a minority government in which Arab parties would support the center-left’s legislative decisions without joining the bloc.If all of this sounds like an insane way to run a government, it’s because it is.One of the biggest mistakes the early Israelis made was adopting a mix of British, Ottoman, and their own makeshift Zionist governing ideas.Israel has a parliamentary system with a unicameral Knesset whose 120 members are elected by proportional representation nationwide. There is a largely ceremonial president and a prime minister who heads a government that is accountable to the Knesset, and vice versa. Rather than being separate branches, as they are in the United States alongside the judicial branch, the executive and lawmaking branches are essentially the same.But the Israeli system also features a judicial branch with entrenched (leftist) judges who, incredibly, get to appoint their own successors in perpetuity. There is no constitution, only malleable Basic Laws.Rather than building largely stable and broad political coalitions before elections, as we do organically within a two-party system, Israeli politicians have to build coalitions after elections. Sometimes, small, radical parties are brought in to create a majority governing coalition, giving extremists outsized power.VOTERS WANTED THE FIRST TRUMP ECONOMY. THEY GOT TARIFF CHAOSThe direct democratic character of Israel’s government, which American progressives would like to emulate here, at various times hands too much power to the prime minister, fringe minority parties, and the court.Still, it’s odd watching the world obsess over the Israeli elections. Even if the boogeyman Netanyahu lost, it is unlikely much would change. Israel’s actions are determined by its enemies. No Israeli governing coalition will create a Palestinian terrorist state next door. If it tried, the government would immediately fall apart.