Politics of Israel takes place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Israel is the head of government, and of a  multi- party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in the Knesset. The Judiciary  is independent of the executive and the legislature. The political system of the State of Israel and its main principles are set out in 11 Basic Laws.



The Knesset (Hebrew: כנסת‎, lit. Assembly) is Israel's unicameral parliament and is seated in Jerusalem. Its 120 members are elected to 4-year terms through party-list proportional representation (see electoral system, below), as mandated by the 1958 Basic Law: The Knesset. As the legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset enacts laws, supervises government activities, and is empowered to elect or remove the President of the State or State Comptroller from office.

The February 2009 elections produced five prominent political parties; Kadima, Likud, Israel Beytenu, Labor and Shas, each with more than ten seats in the Knesset. Three of these parties were ruling parties in the past. However, only once has a single party held the 61 seats needed for a majority government (the Alignment from 1968 until the 1969 elections). Therefore, aside from that one exception, since 1948 Israeli governments have always comprised coalitions. As of 2009, there are 12 political parties represented in the Knesset, spanning both the political and religious spectra.


Israel's electoral law is based on a Basic Law (The Knesset) and the 1969 Knesset Elections Law.

The Knesset's 120 members are elected by secret ballot to 4-year terms, although the Knesset may decide to call for new elections before the end of the 4-year term, and a government can change without a general election; since the 1988 election, no Knesset has finished its 4-year term. In addition a motion of confidence may be called. Voting is carried out using the highest averages method of party-list proportional representation, using the d'Hondt formula.

General elections are closed list; that is, voters vote only for party lists and cannot affect the order of candidates within the lists and since the 1992 Parties Law, only registered parties may stand. There are no separate electoral districts; all voters vote on the same party lists. Suffrage is universal among Israeli citizens aged 18 years or older, but voting is optional. Polling locations are open throughout Israel; absentee ballots are limited to diplomatic staff and the merchant marine. While each party attains one seat for 1 in 120 votes, there is a minimum threshold (recently increased to 2% ) for parties to attain their first seat in an election. This action was intended to bar smaller parties from parliament but spurred some parties to join together simply to overcome the threshold. The low vote threshold for entry into parliament, as well as the need for these small-party seats to form coalition governments, causes the political spectrum to be highly fragmented, with small parties exercising disproportionate coalition power relative to their electoral strength.


The president selects the prime minister as the party leader most able to form a government, based on the number of parliament seats her or his coalition has won. After the president's selection, the prime minister has forty-five days to form a government. The members of the cabinet must be collectively approved by the Knesset. This electoral system, inherited from the Yishuv (Jewish settlement organization during the British Mandate), makes it very difficult for any party to gain a working majority in the Knesset and thus the government is generally formed on the basis of a coalition. Elections are often held earlier than scheduled, due to difficulties in holding coalitions together. The average life span of an Israeli government is 25 months. Over the years, the peace process, the role of religion in the state, and political scandals have caused coalitions to break apart or produced early elections, each with more than ten seats in the Knesset. Three of these parties were ruling parties in the past.

The Judicial branch is an independent branch of the government, including secular and religious courts for the various religions present in Israel. The court system involves three stages of justice.
[edit] Judicial courts

Israeli judicial courts consist of a three-tier system:

    * Magistrate Courts serves as the court of first instance
    * District Courts serves as the appellate courts and also serve as the court of first instance for some cases;
    * Supreme Court is located in Jerusalem and acts as an appellate court, and as the High Court of Justice as a court of first instance often in matters concerning the legality of decisions of state authorities.

In December 1985, Israel informed the UN Secretariat that it would no longer accept compulsory International Court of Justice jurisdiction.

Some issues of family law (marriage and divorce in particular) fall either under the jurisdiction of religious courts or under parallel jurisdiction of those and the state's family courts. The state maintains and finances Rabbinical, Sharia and various Canonical courts for the needs of the various religious communities. All judges are civil servants, and required to uphold general law in their tribunals as well. The High court of Justice serves as final appellate instance for all religious courts. The Jewish religious authorities are under control of the Prime Minister's Office and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. These courts have jurisdiction in only five areas: Kashrut, Sabbath, Jewish burial, marital issues (especially divorce), and Jewish status of immigrants. However, except for determining a person's marital status, all other marital issues may also be taken to secular Family Courts.

The other major religions in Israel, such as Islam and Christianity, are supervised by their own establishments of religious law. These courts have similar jurisdiction over their followers, although Muslim religious courts have more control over family affairs.

Golda Meir, a former Israeli Prime Minister, joked that "in Israel, there are 3 million prime ministers". Because of the proportional representation system, there is a large number of political parties, many of whom run on very specialized platforms, often advocating the tenets of particular interest groups. The prevalent balance between the largest parties means that the smaller parties can have disproportionately strong influence to their size. Due to their ability to act as tie breakers, they often use this status to block legislation or promote their own agenda, even contrary to the manifesto of the larger party in office.

Israeli politics is dominated by Zionist parties which traditionally fall into three camps, the first two being the largest: Labor Zionism (which has social democrat colors), Revisionist Zionism (which shares some traits with Tories or conservatives in other countries) and Religious Zionism (although there are several non Zionist Orthodox religious parties, as well as anti-Zionist Israeli Arab parties). In 2009 the two main Arab political parties, the National Democratic Assembly (also known as Balad) and Ra'am-Ta'al, were initially banned from contesting the next election by the Central Election Committee, but this decision was overturned by the Supreme Court of Israel.

From the founding of Israel in 1948 until the election of May 1977, Israel was ruled by successive coalition governments led by the Labor Alignment (or Mapai prior to 1967). From 1967 to 1970, a national unity government included all of Israel's parties except for the two factions of the Communist Party of Israel. After the 1977 election, the Revisionist Zionist Likud bloc, then composed of Herut, the Liberals, and the smaller La'am Party, came to power forming a coalition with the National Religious Party, Agudat Israel, and others.

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