Alright: here it is. Israeli politics. It's its own separate branch of government philosophy -- right there next to democracy, socialist, and totalitarianism.
The problem is, there is no constitution in Israel. (Believe me, if there was, the whole problem in Israel that we have now wouldn't be, and I wouldn't be writing this blog entry.) Here's a basic run-down of the election problem: right now, we have two main candidates, Netanyahu and Livni. They are both trying to score their party the most seats in the K'nesset (the Hebrew equivalent of a Parliment.), which will then lead them to the position of Prime Minister.
The president of Israel, who servers more as a formality and for diplomacy than anything else, has the option of asking either candidate to create a coalition. The candidate and his/her party has this option, or they can, of course, decline. If both candidates refuse to create a coalition, then the president, Shimon Peres, has two options: he could either create a rotation system, where both candidates will receive time as Prime Minister. He could also choose his own candidate, or he could choose from the two.
As everyone knows by now, I supported Obama in the election. The most-asked question that people asked me was: do you honestly think that Obama will help Israel. The answer: I don't know -- and neither does Obama. He has a choice; he could either "help" them by letting Israel bomb the living snot outa the Arabs, or he could "help" Israel by trying to negotiate with the Arabs. And for Heaven's sake, Israel doesn't know what's good for Israel, and with the current situation with the governent, it doens't have time to.
First of all, if there was a constitution, or any set of laws, Israel would not be in this situation. And second of all, who invented this?
P.S. This may not be neccessarily comforting, but Israel is in a worse situation than the United States right now. :)
