Unelected officials’ powers

In his analytical piece “Forget fights over the High Court – the comptroller revolution no one saw coming” (August 7), Yonah Jeremy Bob apparently believes that when unelected officials take on additional powers there isn’t a problem. It’s when they relinquish those powers that we have a problem.

Similarly to Aaron Barak’s changing the rules of, among other things, who can file a complaint to the High Court of Justice and what are valid matters that can be brought before it, about which most were silent, when there is an attempt to return to the status quo ante, the media is up in arms. So is Matanyahu Englman’s intention to abdicate the powers taken by Micha Lindenstrauss. Some 12 years ago, there was a cause for the media to raise an alarm, but his taking them didn’t bother the media. Nor does the general condition that political party hacks decide who the elected officials will be.

Our current political situation is a direct result of Mapai and Mapam decisions as to how they are to be elected. The fact that no member of the Knesset feels any obligation to an ordinary citizen who has no power in that member’s political party is one of the unfortunate outcomes of the way the people who set up the mess we have as a political system were raised and educated. Unfortunately, they mostly came from Eastern Europe, which hadn’t had a properly-functioning democratic system, and still has problems in that regard.

Since the people who have the power to change the system are the people who most benefit from it now, the chances that Israel will have a representative government responsible to its citizens is unlikely. For better or for worse, the media will probably continue to be unable to make the situation conform to Western standards of civic responsibility on the part of the elected officials.

HAIM SHALOM SNYDER

Petah Tikva