Government of Yisrael
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| Central government overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1715 (Proclamation of the Kingdom of Yisrael) |
| Jurisdiction | Yisrael |
| Headquarters | Yerushalayim |
| Central government executives | |
The His Majesty's Government of the Kingdom of Yisrael is the central government of the five districts that constitute the nation-state of Yisrael. The central government is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the Royal Constitution in the Royal Knesset, His Majesty the King, the Presidency of Yisrael, and the royal judiciary, including the Sanhedrin, respectively. The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by acts of the Knesset, including the creation of executive departments and courts inferior to the Sanhedrin.
The full name of the Kingdom is "The Kingdom of Yisrael." No other name appears in the Royal Constitution, and this is the name that appears on money, in treaties, and in legal cases to which it is a party (e.g., Bernstein v. The Kingdom of Yisrael). The terms "Royal Government" or "Royal Government of Yisrael" are often used in official documents to represent the central government as distinct from the districts collectively. In casual conversation or writing, the term "Royal Government" is often used, and the term "National Government" or "Yisraeli Government" are sometimes used alternatively. The terms "Royal" and "National" in government agency or program names generally indicate affiliation with the central government (e.g., Royal Ministry of Defense, the Office of National Defense Coordination, etc.). Because the seat of government is in Yerushalayim, "Yerushalayim" is commonly used as a metonym for the Royal government.
Currently, the Royal Government is lead by the Katz presidency.
Cabinet
Cabinet
| Ministry | Minister | Party |
|---|---|---|
| President | Yitzchok Katz | RC |
| Vice-President | Gershon Blau | RC |
| Foreign Minister | Ariel Goldblatt | RC |
| Defense Minister | Naftali Bauman | RC |
| Justice Minister | David Roth | RC |
| Interior Minister | David Touro | LNJ |
| Finance Minister | Alexander Keisenberg | RC |
| Transportation Minister | Yehudis Eisenberger | RC |
| Immigration Minister | Avrohom Abadi | RC |
| Education Minister | Tuvia Abramowitz | TA |
| Religious Affairs Minister | Yoshiyahu Siegel | TA |
| Economic Development Minister | Mendel Feinstein | AFY |
| King's Minister | Prince Michoel | Nonpartisan |
History
Absolute monarchy era
Legally, the government of the current state of Yisrael came into being with the proclamation of the Kingdom of Yisrael by Grand Duke Moshe III, who was crowned King Moshe I. As a practical matter, the existing government under the Grand Duchy simply transitioned into the newfound royal regime. However, in the weeks and months after the kingdom's creation, the new monarch sacked and replaced a number of old Grand Duchal-turned-royal officials, retainers, and nobility in what sources at the time believed was an attempt to rid the new royal court of entrenched bureaucratic figures with vested interests in existing privileges, power, patronage and nepotism.
The new royal administration was centered in Yerushalayim and officials increasingly became dependent on the monarch's favor to secure their position. As the 18th century rolled onward, the old petty fiefdoms and regional power bases of local and royal figures outside of the capital were progressively dismantled and defanged by Moshe I and his sons.
During the 1700s, Yisrael and Arthurista developed increasingly close ties in trade and geopolitics, in part by the growing influence of a small but well-placed Arthuristan Jewry whose merchants and middle-strata professions like lawyers and physicians found more patronage and favor in the Arthuristan court and its nobility. By the second half of the 18th century, the philosophical principles of the Arthuristan Illumination increasingly influenced the Yisraeli court and government. Between the 1780s and 1810s, numerous Yisraeli nobles and officials debated and argued these new ideas in front of the king.
19th century reforms
During the reign of King Nechemia I, the Nasi, a chancellor-like position filled by Reuven of Ashkelon, an ordained rabbi, lawyer, and merchant who studied in a Loweport, Arthurista yeshiva and advocated the shift towards a rational-legal authority, a professional civil service and merit-based exam to fill its ranks, as well as a reduction in tariffs and custom duties, views of a new laissez faire school of economic thought from the westerly Belisarian island-nation. Nasi Reuven had the king's ear, and was given permission to implement a new series of reforms. In 1817, a standardized civil service exam and reorganization of the royal bureaucracy was undertaken. The following year, the king granted the Royal Council its request to lower taxes and duties on trade imports. However, Nechemia refused to allow Reuven's repeated push for a theory of authority based on competence and merit and away from the divine right to rule. In 1823, due to Reuven's repeated attempts to gain the king's agreement and the king's shift towards Reuven's opposition traditional clique, the Nasi was sacked and further reforms curtailed for another thirty years. However, in Reuven of Ashkelon's ten-year reign as Nasi, he also was successful in the installation of Illumination-influenced figures across the royal government.
Early 20th century reforms
The late 19th and early 20th century saw rising support for popular consent in the royal government, inspired by the increasing voting franchise in places like Arthurista as well as worker and artisan-dominated decision-making in local politics and business enterprises in nearby Agmatia. King Meir II (1871-1909), who had spent time in Belisaria as a teenager, surrounded himself with modernizing officials and agreed in 1901 to create an advisory congress called the Knesset, elected by a limited franchise of landowners and the nobility.
Constitutional era
Constitution and the 1920s
After the 1919 Revolution and the overthrow of the absolute monarchy with King Nechemia II's forced abdication, the central government was legally transitioned to the 1920 Constitution a year later. The source of authority in the government changed from the monarch (divine mandate) to the Constitution (rational-legal authority), though the Constitution's Preamble made clear its authority derived from a divine mandate from the Torah, which has for a century been a source of a particularly fierce but parochial debate among Yisraeli theorists and academics over the philosophical nature of the Yisrael state.
The Constitution created a tripartite structure of government increasingly common among countries as the 20th century progressed onward into high modernity: the King and a newly created popularly-elected Prime Minister comprising the executive branch, with the monarch as head of state and the PM as the head of government, the legislative branch (a fully-empowered Knesset), and the judiciary (the Sanhedrin).
Although the Constitution on its face gave the monarch powerful royal prerogatives, the political reality of a government and political climate dominated by modernist and anti-clerical constitutional liberal forces caused Nechemia II's heir, King Josiah III to proceed cautiously exerting his powers. Despite his caution, Prime Minister Shalom Blumfeld (1922-1928), an avowed critic of the monarchy who wanted additional constitutional amendments limiting the king akin to the ceremonial role in nations such as Arthurista or Erishland, fought Josiah tooth and nail in the first years of the uneasy constitutional regime. For example, the post of King's Minister in the Prime Ministerial Cabinet was blocked by Blumfeld and never filled, eventually forgotten about and ignored until the Katz administration and the Hezekian Reaction.
After the monarchist Royalist Conservatives took power in 1928, the new royalist PM Reuven Levy offered a more cooperative stance towards the king.
Autocracy era
The aftermath of (the first part of) the Third West Scipian War (retroactively called 'Phase I') saw the forced resignation of wartime Prime Minister Yitzchok Chaim and his entire cabinet as a condition of the Sydalon-imposed peace treaty in the fall 1941. A caretaker government under Putiel Werther was assembled, staffed by a bevy of war doves and other "accomodationists" that satisfied the Sydalene occupation authorities. However, the caretaker government barely lasted two months before it fell to a military coup d'etat led by General David Azoulay and his allied right-wing political allies. Although he publicly assured the Sydalenes of his intent of obeying the 1941 treaty, he quickly launched a secretive rearmament and rebuilding program, largely overseas.
Azoulay declared himself 'Supreme Autocrat' and that the Kingdom of Yisrael had become the Autocracy of Yisrael; the Knesset was suspended indefinitely and never met under his rule. The Sanhedrin, the most conservative of the three branches, refused to rule on lawsuits brought through the courts on the legitimacy of Azoulay's actions, and the position of Prime Minister was transformed into the Chancellery of Yisrael, a grand vizier-like role that answered solely to the Supreme Autocrat himself.
In an event called the Midnight Coup in February 1942, King Josiah III was forced at gunpoint to abdicate the throne in favor of his younger brother David, who was a staunch supporter of Azoulayism. Josiah was exiled to Arthurista, and the new monarch, King David IV, abdicated any independent control of his prerogatives, instead following the orders of Azoulay and his senior ministers.
The constitutional order from 1920 was considered held in abeyance during Azoulay's rule from 1941 until his death and his regime's ouster in 1951.
