From a Messianic believer living in Israel…..

As most of you have probably heard, Israelis will be heading to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new government.

The way Israel’s government works is very similar to the Parliament of Great Britain. Our system of government is one of many things we inherited from the British Mandatory Authority that administered this country from 1918 to 1948.

When there is an election, the people vote for political parties, not individuals. There is no regional representation, an MK is supposed to represent everyone from the ritziest neighborhood in Tel Aviv to the most remote kibbutz. The
reality usually falls somewhat short of that ideal.

Anyway, the political parties receive seats in the Knesset according to the number
of votes they get. There are 120 seats, and the leader of the party that gets the most seats becomes Prime Minster. In order to form a majority of 61 seats, the largest party forms a coalition with smaller parties. In order to get the smaller parties to join the government, they must be given posts in the cabinet, like Defense Minister, Foreign Minister, Interior Minister, etc.

Theoretically, there is supposed to be an election every five years, but if one party or another is not happy with what’s going on, they can force a change by
leaving the government which will cause the largest party to no longer have a majority, and that will force new elections.

Just once, I’d like to see a government last five entire years, but at the same time, I’m glad it won’t be this one.

Our current Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, was recently interrogated by the police for the 14th time. He is one of several Israeli politicians who is under investigation for corruption and various and sundry other high crimes and misdemeanors. He is also the only head of State in the history of the democratic world to achieve a 0% popularity rating.

That’s not a typo brothers and sisters.

In several polls taken over the last two years, Ehud Olmert has received support from 0% of the Israeli population.

In any other democracy anywhere in the world, if a head of state and/or government had popularity lower than 30%, there would be serious talk of him resigning. If his popularity dropped below 20% that talk would get VERY serious and if it dropped below 10% he’d be forced to resign.

Not this guy!

But, it’s almost over. No matter what the result of Tuesday’s elections, Ehud Olmert will NOT be the Prime Minister in the new government.

So, the three front-runners to be our next Prime Minster are; Ehud Barak, a former Prime Minister, current Defense Minister and leader of the Left Wing Labor Party.

Tzipi Livni, former Mossad agent and leader of the Center-Left Kadima Party.

Binyamin Netanyahu, former Prime Minister and leader of the Right Wing Likud Party.

I don’t think any of these people are anything special, and since this is a non-partisan group I won’t endorse one. But I WILL say that there’s one who is not as bad as the other two, and you can probably guess which one I mean.

For those of you who have asked me what to pray about concerning this election, my thoughts are this.

As far as the Believers in Israel are concerned, the Prime Minister is not nearly as important as who ends up being Interior Minister. The Interior Minister sets policies/priorities for the police and also for issues concerning visa applications, citizenship requests, etc. 

Obviously, if the Interior Ministry is friendly or even indifferent to Believers, that can make our lives a lot easier. But if the Interior Ministry is unfriendly, it can make our lives very uncomfortable and even dangerous.

Israel is a democracy but it is NOT a free country. We don’t have a Constitution and each new government is free to choose how to apply the laws and which laws to apply and which to ignore. The government has immense powers and the ordinary citizen does not have nearly as much personal freedom or rights as the citizens of most Western countries are used to. It is necessary for things to be that way because of the situation here.

So, if you want to pray for these elections, pray that God will bless Israel with leadership that will have wisdom, courage and vision. For the Believers, pray that the next Interior Minister will be a friend, or at least not an enemy, of the community here.

Blessings to all.