Israel needs a written Constitution, including a Bill of Rights.
When the State of Israel was re-estabished in 1948, after almost 2000 years of Jewish exile, the nascent State was at war with all its neighbours and had neither time nor energy to establish the most basic legal framework for nationhood - a Constitution.
The current ongoing protests and counter protests, ostensibly about judicial reform, are really about Israel leaving national adolescence and survival mode behind and finally confronting the essential conflicts and difficulties in what it means to have a modern Jewish democratic State.
Professor David Passig has written about this and correctly pointed out that it takes 70-100 years for a new nation to fully establish its own sovereignty and unique blend of democracy. This has certainly been true for the USA and Australia, whose Constitutional framework I am very familiar with.
Everyone I speak to agrees that Israel needs a Constitution, but then they say: How can we create one given the disagreements embodied in the protests?
Well I have a detailed answer to that question:
- a mechanism for creating a Constitution that comes directly from the Israeli people, not from politicians or protest leaders (although both would have a small say);
- directly from the whole mass of the Israeli people in an a cheap, transparent and efficient manner;
- using the existing technology of the Hive Blockchain.
Mechanism for an Israeli Constitution using Hive Blockchain technology
Creating a Constitution is a wholistic exercise that must recognise that people have multiple allegiances and national life proceeds on a number of different bases.
I will call these bases geographic, economic and social/religious and the mechanism is designed to ensure that each has equal weight.
The geographic location we live is very important, particularly for the Jewish People for whom attachment to the Land of Israel is so ancient and strong. Our physical, geographic location is the starting point for community (neighbours, local schools, workplaces, businesses, clubs, places of worship etc) and many political systems adopt a geographic electorate approach to selecting political representatives.
Our economic interests are also very important - it puts food on the table, a roof over our heads and on a national level sustains our prosperity and survival in a sometimes hostile world. Economics obviously plays a part in politics because traditional political campaigning costs a lot of money.
Finally our social / religious ties are very important to us and to national life, whether that be allegiance to a sporting team, a synagogue, an educational institution or a political party.
Constitution Voting Tokens
I propose that each adult citizen of Israel be given three Constitution Voting Tokens ("CVT"s):
- a geographic token,
- an economic token and
- a social/religious token.
These CVTs would be issued as special smart contract tokens on Hive Engine and the existing robust processes for Hive signup, combined with user names being a hash of the person's Teudat Zehut (TZ -national identity number) and full name (as shown on their TZ). This provides anonymous voting but verifiable identity to ensure no double voting.
An online system would be developed for people to securely upload copies of their TZ's and have a Hive account and keys created for the ~ 7 million eligible voters.
Mechanism for Creating Consitution
The purpose of the CVTs are to enable the following mechanism:
Self organisation into voting electorates (on each of the three bases).
Any group of 18 people can create a geographic, economic or social / religious proto-electorate with their CVTs but 360 CVT votes are needed to be a valid voting electorate. Existing organisations will likely be the starting point for many electorates but any group of people can self organise into a minimum of 360 person electorate.Election of First Round Representatives (around 18,000; 6000 for each base).
Each electorate will vote with a minimum of one representative for small electorates with pro-rata multiple representatives from larger electorates.The elected First Round Representatives plus the current 120 members of the Knesset and Supreme Court Judges will form The First People's Body;
Online debate and discussion among The First People's Body to establish the basic framework of a Constitution (what it will include and what it will not include) with various existing Constitutions of other nations and the Torah (Bible) being starting points;
Voting (using CVTs) on the basic Constitutional framework (not specific provisions or language) by the First Round Representatives - this may proceed with a number of rounds as competing frameworks are eliminated.
Voting (using CVTs) by the First Round Representatives on 1,800 Second Round Representatives (maintaining equality in number between bases);
Online debate and discussion among the Second Round Representatives on specific language of Constitutional provisions (with division into various sub-committees for various topics)
Voting (using CVTs) on specific provisions and language by the First Round Representatives to whittle it down to no more than three options per controversial topic with - this may proceed with a number of rounds as competing provisions are eliminated. This process will also ensure that there is no possibility of fundamentally inconsistent provisions being put up for election in different topics - each controversy must be distilled to a particular set of options that the people can vote on.
An in-person Constitutional Convention to resolve final issues and prepare the final draft Constitutional provisions for national vote.
Final national voting of all eligible voters (using CVTs) to accept any uncontroversial provisions (where Second Round Representatives have been able to agree with a 90% vote) and select the winning provisions on controversial issues.
Printing and distribution of the new Israeli Constitution to every citizen and the swearing of allegiance to The Constitution by The Knesset, all Judges, all senior bueracrats and all military officers.
Please vote for my Hive witness. (KeyChain or HiveSigner)