There is one reform that is needed more desperately in Israel than any other, and it is needed right this moment, at this point in Jewish history. It is a new practice that would say the following: when major policies turn out to be disastrous for the country, involving large numbers of deaths or billions of dollars in damages, then those Knesset members or government ministers who had advocated the policy in the first place will be held personally responsible for its failure. Knesset members who had spoken out in favor of the most disastrous policy decisions would sacrifice their personal livelihoods and property, and possibly do jail time.
This reform would act as an enormous deterrent to the advocacy of foolhardy and poorly thought-through policy to begin with. It would force Knesset members to do homework and actually think through policy problems. The more cautious might even do a bit of reading, including of policy analysis.
Now before anyone jumps up and screams that the above proposal is an anti-democratic monstrosity, I suggest taking a deep breath and considering the following fact: Not only is the above idea not anti-democratic, but it is an idea that comes directly to us from the very creators of democracy; from the people who first developed the idea of freedom and direct participation in democratic politics to its highest and most sublime form. It comes from Classical Athens.
In Classical Athens, speakers in public forums were held to be personally responsible and liable for major disasters caused by the policies in whose favor they had previously spoken. The rule applied not only to elected officials but also to leading public speakers who advocated the said policy in the major public debating forums. Such individuals suffered loss of property, banishment and sometimes worse when major catastrophes resulted from policies in whose favor they had spoken. The personal liability was not enforced for minor setbacks and failures, only for those resulting in large disasters.
In essence, Athens demanded that its leaders take upon themselves the moral responsibility of urging choices of one alternative over the other, putting their money and honor where their mouths are. Once major catastrophe would strike, those responsible were denied the option of arguing they had erred in good faith. Such good faith arguments were applicable only up to some reasonable limit of damages, beyond which a leader was held personally culpable for the outcomes of policies he had promoted.
The holding of Athenian politicians personally responsible for disastrous policies they had promoted is reported by Thucydides. The policy was applied to those politicians, led by Alkibiades, who had advocated Athens disastrous invasion of Sicily. In the fifth century BCE, Athens had recently managed to reach a stalemate with Sparta after the First Peloponnesian War. Leading speakers in the Athens public assembly promoted the idea of stirring up trouble for Sparta by sending an expeditionary force to Sicily, to assist towns rebelling against Sparta?s allies. The expedition landed in Syracuse, but rapidly turned into a disastrous rout of the Athenians. Even worse, it reignited the Peloponnesian War, and this time, Athens was defeated by Sparta and lost its position for well over two millennia as the Capital of Greece. Those leaders who had spoken in favor of actions revealed in retrospect to be the height of folly were held personally responsible.
Why should not Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Yossi Sarid, and the rest of the Cult of the Oslo Pagan Goddess be treated the same way?
The Israeli government led by Ariel Sharon has gone even further than that of Ehud Barak in appeasing the Palestinian savages. Barak had let Camp David collapse, because he was unwilling to give up his demand that the Palestinians formally declare that the Arab-Israeli conflict was over once the deal had been signed, and Barak also wanted an explicit renunciation by the PLO of the so-called Right of Return. The Right of Return would allow millions of people claiming to be Palestinians to migrate to Israel after the Palestinians would get their own state, in order to destroy Israel demographically and politically from within, and also to demand any property these Palestinians claim they have in Israel. Sharon went beyond Barak in that the new sudden Likud passion for Bush?s Road Map is not conditioned on either an explicit PLO renunciation of the Right of Return nor on an official declaration that, in exchange for their state, the Palestinians must declare to the world that the Arab-Israeli conflict is over. That is because it will not be over. Palestine plans to continue the war after it is a state.
Should it turn out that all these components of the new Road Map stage of ?Oslo? produce a lasting and stable peace, then Sharon and the Likud and the rest of the promoters of the peace process will enter history books as moral and intellectual giants, with the eternal gratitude of the Jewish people and the rest of humanity.
On the other hand, should such decisions prove to be among the greatest follies in human history, then it will behoove the nation to follow the lead of Classical Athens and hold all those who promoted such insanity to be personally liable and responsible. Should rockets and shells obliterate northern Israel because Ehud Barak and his Labor party junta turned the Southern Lebanon security zone over to the Hizbullah, should Syrian tanks once again race down the slopes towards the Sea of Galilee, should Israeli cities come under artillery barrage or Katyusha fire from the State of Palestine thanks to Ariel Sharon and the Likud lemmings, should Arafat or his heir invite in foreign Arab or Iranian troops to attack Israeli cities from their suburbs, should the Palestinians or the Syrians or anyone else exploit Israel?s return to its vulnerable 1949 borders to try - once again - to erase the state from the map, should the Arabs - any Arabs - use non-conventional weapons against Israel, should any of these disasters take place - then Israel and the Jewish people must follow the lead of the Greek inventors of political democracy.
Should any of these catastrophes occur, then the Israeli public and the Jewish people must hold all the public promoters of this peace personally responsible for the catastrophe, disaster and folly produced by Oslo. This must include all those leaders who led the public by the nose and down the primrose Oslo path, all those who spoke of a New Middle East, all those who assured the public that a lasting and stable peace would result from Israel placing its neck back into the hangman?s noose. This must be done because it is the democratic thing to do.
Ask the Athenians.
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Steven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa and is author of The Scout (available from Gefen Publishing House: http://161.58.167.199/shop/indi_scout.htm). More of his writings can be seen on the New Plaut Blog.
This reform would act as an enormous deterrent to the advocacy of foolhardy and poorly thought-through policy to begin with. It would force Knesset members to do homework and actually think through policy problems. The more cautious might even do a bit of reading, including of policy analysis.
Now before anyone jumps up and screams that the above proposal is an anti-democratic monstrosity, I suggest taking a deep breath and considering the following fact: Not only is the above idea not anti-democratic, but it is an idea that comes directly to us from the very creators of democracy; from the people who first developed the idea of freedom and direct participation in democratic politics to its highest and most sublime form. It comes from Classical Athens.
In Classical Athens, speakers in public forums were held to be personally responsible and liable for major disasters caused by the policies in whose favor they had previously spoken. The rule applied not only to elected officials but also to leading public speakers who advocated the said policy in the major public debating forums. Such individuals suffered loss of property, banishment and sometimes worse when major catastrophes resulted from policies in whose favor they had spoken. The personal liability was not enforced for minor setbacks and failures, only for those resulting in large disasters.
In essence, Athens demanded that its leaders take upon themselves the moral responsibility of urging choices of one alternative over the other, putting their money and honor where their mouths are. Once major catastrophe would strike, those responsible were denied the option of arguing they had erred in good faith. Such good faith arguments were applicable only up to some reasonable limit of damages, beyond which a leader was held personally culpable for the outcomes of policies he had promoted.
The holding of Athenian politicians personally responsible for disastrous policies they had promoted is reported by Thucydides. The policy was applied to those politicians, led by Alkibiades, who had advocated Athens disastrous invasion of Sicily. In the fifth century BCE, Athens had recently managed to reach a stalemate with Sparta after the First Peloponnesian War. Leading speakers in the Athens public assembly promoted the idea of stirring up trouble for Sparta by sending an expeditionary force to Sicily, to assist towns rebelling against Sparta?s allies. The expedition landed in Syracuse, but rapidly turned into a disastrous rout of the Athenians. Even worse, it reignited the Peloponnesian War, and this time, Athens was defeated by Sparta and lost its position for well over two millennia as the Capital of Greece. Those leaders who had spoken in favor of actions revealed in retrospect to be the height of folly were held personally responsible.
Why should not Shimon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Yossi Sarid, and the rest of the Cult of the Oslo Pagan Goddess be treated the same way?
The Israeli government led by Ariel Sharon has gone even further than that of Ehud Barak in appeasing the Palestinian savages. Barak had let Camp David collapse, because he was unwilling to give up his demand that the Palestinians formally declare that the Arab-Israeli conflict was over once the deal had been signed, and Barak also wanted an explicit renunciation by the PLO of the so-called Right of Return. The Right of Return would allow millions of people claiming to be Palestinians to migrate to Israel after the Palestinians would get their own state, in order to destroy Israel demographically and politically from within, and also to demand any property these Palestinians claim they have in Israel. Sharon went beyond Barak in that the new sudden Likud passion for Bush?s Road Map is not conditioned on either an explicit PLO renunciation of the Right of Return nor on an official declaration that, in exchange for their state, the Palestinians must declare to the world that the Arab-Israeli conflict is over. That is because it will not be over. Palestine plans to continue the war after it is a state.
Should it turn out that all these components of the new Road Map stage of ?Oslo? produce a lasting and stable peace, then Sharon and the Likud and the rest of the promoters of the peace process will enter history books as moral and intellectual giants, with the eternal gratitude of the Jewish people and the rest of humanity.
On the other hand, should such decisions prove to be among the greatest follies in human history, then it will behoove the nation to follow the lead of Classical Athens and hold all those who promoted such insanity to be personally liable and responsible. Should rockets and shells obliterate northern Israel because Ehud Barak and his Labor party junta turned the Southern Lebanon security zone over to the Hizbullah, should Syrian tanks once again race down the slopes towards the Sea of Galilee, should Israeli cities come under artillery barrage or Katyusha fire from the State of Palestine thanks to Ariel Sharon and the Likud lemmings, should Arafat or his heir invite in foreign Arab or Iranian troops to attack Israeli cities from their suburbs, should the Palestinians or the Syrians or anyone else exploit Israel?s return to its vulnerable 1949 borders to try - once again - to erase the state from the map, should the Arabs - any Arabs - use non-conventional weapons against Israel, should any of these disasters take place - then Israel and the Jewish people must follow the lead of the Greek inventors of political democracy.
Should any of these catastrophes occur, then the Israeli public and the Jewish people must hold all the public promoters of this peace personally responsible for the catastrophe, disaster and folly produced by Oslo. This must include all those leaders who led the public by the nose and down the primrose Oslo path, all those who spoke of a New Middle East, all those who assured the public that a lasting and stable peace would result from Israel placing its neck back into the hangman?s noose. This must be done because it is the democratic thing to do.
Ask the Athenians.
--------------------------------------------------------
Steven Plaut teaches at the University of Haifa and is author of The Scout (available from Gefen Publishing House: http://161.58.167.199/shop/indi_scout.htm). More of his writings can be seen on the New Plaut Blog.