Chapter 8 of 1 Samuel reads like a constitutional convention. The fount of legitimacy (God) has been well served by the founding leader (Samuel), but as Samuel ages, the people want a king. God, peeved but accepting, has Samuel warn them that the proposed system will have deleterious consequences:
| The king will “take your sons… to be his horsemen, he will take your daughters to be perfumers, and to be cooks, and to be bakers... he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive groves…and give them to his servants… He will take the tenth of your flocks; and ye shall be his servants... But the people refused to listen; and they said, but there shall be a king over us… like all the nations; and our king will judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” |
The balance between trust in institutions and the desire for strong leadership has been a constant tension in political thought, in general, and in thinking about democracy, in particular. Trust in institutions is seen as an indication of the public’s assessment of the legitimacy of the system.
Centuries after the Biblical narrative, Israel again faces tension between the people’s assessment of the state of the political system and their desire to achieve stability and security. In the past few years, this tension has grown. The Israel Defense Forces and the Supreme Court continue to generate higher levels of trust than other institutions, but these too are declining. At the other extreme, political institutions such as political parties, the prime minister and other government ministers, and the Knesset, fail to engender widespread trust.
When asked whether politicians pay attention to the opinions of the ordinary citizens, only a quarter to a third of the respondents thought they did. The data portray a very chary citizenry that lacks political efficacy and whose interest and levels of participation are waning.
A consistent pattern in this skein of conflicting threads is the desire for assertive political leadership. This pattern was noted in the 1960s, and it persists. The rate of preference for strong leadership to "all the debates and laws" has always been above fifty percent, and two out of three respondents agreed with this assertion in 2008. Despite the surface support for democratic norms, there is a stubborn respect for a strong leader in Israeli politics. This explains, at least in part, the overwhelming popularity of leaders like Ben Gurion, Begin and Sharon.
The resultant syndrome appears paradoxical, but its elements actually mesh well. On the surface, there is a cockiness and self-assurance about running the country as well as about many less important issues. At a more fundamental level, there is also a desire for order, security and leadership. The former provides the semblance of the latter: in place of the desired authority comes an assertive dogmatism. Whether this fundamental insecurity has its roots in the individual psyche or in the educational system — or in one of any number of other sources — is unclear. At the public level, however, this provides very fertile ground for cultivating widespread support for positions associated with leaders invested with legitimacy. Public opinion in Israel is volatile and can be manipulated to support the dominant position of the appropriate leaders when the proper symbols and appeals are applied.