A Change Is Gonna Come

Leon Orbach

It's been a longA long time comin’, but I knowA change gon' comeOh yes, it will.

Gospel Song by Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come

Democracy in Israel is a strange beast.

With the exception of The Democrats (HaDemocratim) and Likud, Party candidates are chosen by the Party leaders or internal bodies. Voters choose a Party and hand over, to the leader of the Party, their right to choose wise, representative legislators. The entire country is one electoral constituency, so there is no real regional representation. The checks and balances of local representation or of an independent electoral commission to decide electoral boundaries are non-existent.

Voters therefore surrender much of their power to the people who construct the lists.

Among the other anomalies that disenfranchise the voters, is the absence of a preferential system resulting in the proliferation of small Parties

Because there is no preferential voting and the electoral threshold is relatively low, governments are almost invariably coalitions. Small parties can therefore exercise disproportionate influence, threatening to bring down a government unless their particular demands are met. With wise and responsible leadership, such a system can work. Without it, narrow interests can prevail over the national good.

In the Primaries, the order of preference is crucial to the likelihood of actually becoming a MK. Primaries (just like general elections) have their own challenges, as voting by registered members is non-compulsory. This makes the outcome subject to the degree to which interest groups within the party can muster supporters to participate.

That makes the contrast between the recent primaries of Likud and The Democrats (HaDemocratim) particularly revealing.

More than 97,000 of The Democrats’ 112,638 eligible members—86.25 per cent—voted in their digital primary. The resulting list alternates women and men, with women occupying half the positions. It is a messy, imperfect expression of participatory democracy, but it gives ordinary party members a meaningful voice.

Likud tells a very different story.

Before its primary, Netanyahu secured eight reserved positions within the top 29 places on the party list, giving him extraordinary influence over who will enter the Knesset.

The consequences are particularly stark for women. Miri Regev is the highest-ranked woman, while Tali Gottlieb is the only other woman near the top of the list with a realistic chance of entering the Knesset. Gila Gamliel, a more traditional and institutional Likud figure, is further down. The result is that, if current projections hold, women may occupy only two of Likud’s roughly two dozen seats.

This is not simply a question of gender. It tells us something about the party itself.

The Likud, increasingly rewards loyalty, ideological conformity and proximity to the leader. Netanyahu’s ability to reserve positions on the list has further weakened the democratic character of the party’s own primary system. Whatever democratic tradition Likud once claimed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to see it beneath the machinery of political survival.

And political survival appears to be the overriding imperative.

After years of war, political division and institutional conflict, the question is whether Israel’s leadership is governing for the country or for itself is somewhat rhetorical.

Like everything else in these waning years of Netanyahu’s rule, decisions taken have been about staying in power, maintaining immunity from prosecution and not about advancing the welfare of Israeli citizens or for that matter of world Jewry and certainly not about democracy, rule of law or justice.

The erosion of trust in democratic institutions, the assault on judicial independence, the growing influence of ultra-Orthodox and Messianic parties and the narrowing definition of what constitutes a legitimate “Jewish” Israel are deeply troubling.

A Jewish state cannot become a state in which “Jewish” means only Haredi or religiously observant. Judaism has always contained argument, diversity and competing interpretations. Pluralism should not be a dirty word. Nor should the rule of law be subordinated to a higher religious or political authority.

There should be no mistake: Israeli democracy is eroding.

If the coming election does not produce meaningful change, the phrase “Jewish democracy” risks becoming an oxymoron.

The task facing the next government is enormous. Israel must recover from the trauma of October 7. It must find a pathway out of the cycle of seemingly endless wars. It must begin rebuilding a society in which citizens on the geographic and economic periphery, the poor, Arab Israelis, secular Israelis and religious communities all feel that they belong.

The opposition parties therefore face a historic choice. Can they put aside their competing interests and ideologies long enough to address the country's fundamental problems? Can they see the forest rather than become lost among the trees of ego and self-interest?

I hope they can unite. The fate of Jewish self-determination now lies in the hands of those non-compulsory voters who will be present in Israel on Oct 27, 2026.

Because on October 27, 2026, Israelis will not simply be choosing a government. They will be choosing what kind of democracy—and what kind of Jewish state—they want to live in.

And perhaps, after a very long time coming, a change will come.

The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast

The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fadin'

And the first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a-changin'

Bob Dylan – The Times They Are A-Changin’