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 | RC |
| 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 professionals 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 Aɣmatia. 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 Yisraeli 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 Prime Minister, who was selected by the leading party in Knesset, 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 and lesser courts created by Acts of Knesset).
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 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.
1952 reforms
After the Yisraeli victory in 'Phase II' of the Third West Scipian War in 1949, an united front of underground Wernerists, socialists, laborists, and other leftists attempted an uprising in the capital in January 1950, sparking the Year of Blood. Closeted or underground liberals, centrists, and some conservatives formed a separate popular front called the Constitutionalists who saw the chaos in the days after Azoulay's forces starting cracking down on the leftist rebels as a clear opportunity and themselves organized and fought for his overthrow. The Year of Blood erupted into a three-way civil war, as parts of the Royal Yisraeli Army defected to both the leftists and the constitutionalists.
By late 1951, the Azoulayists and the leftists were routed, with the Constitutionalists seizing the capital and most of the major cities. Azoulay and many of his leading generals killed themselves, and King David IV was found dead mysteriously. The Constitutionalists proclaimed the short-lived Provisional Government of Yisrael, which in early 1952 initiated a referendum that passed overwhelmingly to restore the the Kingdom. Asher Berkowitz, the Constitutionalist leader and self-declared acting Prime Minister, organized an open general election that he won in March 1952 as well as voting in a restored Royal Knesset.
One of the Knesset's first acts was to pass a series of reforms called the Royal Reform Acts to prevent the return to an Autocracy-era regime or a Year of Blood again. The Acts transformed the Prime Ministership into a presidency, the Monarchy of Yisrael was severely limited, including compelling the King to pass the duties of commander-in-chief to the President as de facto military Supreme Commander by operation of law as well as breaking up the defunct Royal Yisraeli Secret Service into its successor organizations.
In addition, to keep out crypto-Azoulayists and leftists of all stripes, an electoral college was created for the districts to ensure only constitutional order-supporting political parties were elected. The Royal Yisraeli Armed Forces were renamed and reorganized as the Royal Yisraeli Defense Forces, a largely symbolic but significant change to reflect the fall of the Empire of Yisrael and signal an end to Yisrael's imperial empire-building ambitions by the ascendant liberal forces.
1970s Yarden reforms
The next era of reform came in the aftermath of the 1973 Yarden Accords, ending the West Scipian Contention with Sydalon and fixing the lines on the Sydalon-Yisrael border. A number of special restrictions on Sydalene Christians by Yisrael were lifted, including curfews, travel permits, exclusion from certain professions and government jobs, among others.
A sub-Cabinet post called the Deputy Foreign Minister for Yarden Affairs was created to oversee and monitor the implementation of the Accords. There was also a so-called "embassy boom" in Yerushalayim, with Sydalon Bloc countries like Latium, Lihnidos, and Ascalzar and others either upgrading or re-establishing embassies and diplomatic recognition with Yisrael as the Accords were signed and implemented.
President as quasi-co-head of state under King Yaakov II (1976-2020)
The reign of King Yaakov II (1975-2020) was characterized by a withdrawal of the monarch from most of his remaining ceremonial duties and rituals. Analysts debate the reasons why - the Royal Family has been tight-lipped on it - but for whatever reason, the king, despite pleas from his advisors and elected politicians, generally started removing himself from the public view almost entirely. Presidents such as Binyamin Shwartz (1976-1984) and others stepped into the role. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, political scientists were debating if the monarchy would ever recover or if the President of Yisrael had de facto become a quasi-co-head-of-state for perpetuity.
Early 2020s royal restoration
The "empowered presidency" came to an end upon Yaakov II's death in late January 2020. His eldest son and heir, Crown Prince Hezekiah, took the throne and in a shocking move declared a 'Royalist Counterrevolution', using royal reserve powers untouched since either the 1919 Revolution or the 1952 Acts to restore royal prerogative and end the legally-dubious limits on his power under the Royal Reform Acts, which were nullified by his decree upon taking the throne and later repealed outright by the Knesset.
The King's Minister position in the Presidential Cabinet was filled by the monarch's middle brother, Prince Michoel, and the YeMep was given extraordinary powers, the largest expansion in its police powers since the end of the absolute monarchy.
Legislative branch
Yisrael's national legislature is the Knesset. The Knesset is unicameral and the highest legislative body in the nation. Its members, known as "Members of Knesset" ("MKs" in shortened parlance), are elected in an official political calendar every two years according to the global secular calendar in an general election run by the various sub-national District electoral commissions. Since 1952, Members are elected from plurality majority single member districts according to the Arthuristan-originated first past the post electoral system.
The Knesset is empowered by the Constitution to self-organize its structure and police its officers, members, and staff. A duly-passed Act of Knesset can change all but the most fundamental elements of the body. It governs its qualifications and duties for candidates and incumbents.
The body has organized itself in a committee system whereby MKs introduce legislation through the relevant committee, where it is debated, marked up, or defeated. A Knesset committee can shelve a bill or outright defeat it; the former is considered a de facto version of the latter. If a bill passes the committee stage, the Knesset leadership (e.g. the majority party, who control the Knesset officer positions) may or may not schedule a general floor vote. If one is set, the leadership may or may not (but usually do) ascribe limits on debate, speeches from MKs, or even aspects of the bill for discussion. Once the floor debate has concluded, the Knesset leadership may call either for a voice vote or roll-call vote. The former is a verbal indication of "aye" or "nay" by assembled MKs. The latter is a recorded vote whereby each MK is called by the presiding clerk by name to vote aye, nay, or present individually.
Assuming there is a quorum, only a plurality majority is needed to pass a bill. Once passed, it is recorded in the Royal Yisraeli Knesset Record, which is published monthly and publicly available in both print and online versions. All Acts of Knesset can be amended or repealed by another session of Knesset.
Culturally, the Knesset is known for being, at times, a "wily" or "wild west" atmosphere. While the two major political parties generally carry on a professional culture and enforce decorum, the ability of third parties to win and be seated in the body has attracted some MKs known to repeatedly violate rules of decorum (in more recent years, controversial members of the major parties have increasingly witnessed this phenomenon, as well). In the late 20th century, backbenchers from minor parties developed a tradition to occasionally heckle the main two parties during floor debates. The main parties have usually let this occur for a minute or so before calling for order to tolerate the "dissent." However, since the Whirlwind Knesset of 2002, members of the main Conservative and then-Constitutional Liberal parties started to adopt the tactics, especially Conservative MKs led by then-Leader Avi Talpas. Since then, Knesset critics have charged the number of disruptive or heckling episodes in Knesset has risen sharply over the next two decades.
Executive branch
The executive branch is divided between the head of state (Monarchy) and head of government (Presidency). The President is popularly elected indirectly through an electoral college that is constituted in a national general election concurrent with that year's Knesset elections and a host of local and District elections every four years. The Monarchy is an inherited position from descendants of the House of David.
The King of Yisrael is the commander-in-chief of the Royal Yisraeli Defense Forces, the symbolic "national representative" of Yisrael, and considered the "Father of the Nation." Since the 1919 Revolution and 1920 Constitution, the monarch has a less-active role in actual political governance and focuses on being a figure of unification, guidance, inspiration, and the face of Yisrael abroad. That notwithstanding, the King has several essential constitutional roles. He has an array of "reserve powers", such a counter-veto to overrule a President's veto of an Act of Knesset, the ability to enact "extraordinary nullification" of Acts of Knesset or other law, grant pardons, withhold ("reserve") royal assent (e.g. suspend the Act of Knesset for an indeterminate time, in effect vetoing it unless the assent is granted at a later time, which then allows the Act to be properly passed and take effect), as well as several other minor powers. During the Constitutional period, these powers (except pardons) were all but unused; however, since the Hezekian Reaction, a couple of these powers have been used by then-King Hezekiah III.
The President of Yisrael appoints a Cabinet of ministers who run individual Royal Ministries (federal departments or agencies). The President initiates the appointment of most senior and mid-level national officers and personnel across the Royal Government. He proposes nominations to the Knesset, who can pass or defeat nominees. If Knesset defeats a nomination, that nominee cannot serve in a Knesset-authorized position, but Presidents may appoint such persons onto their Presidential Palace staff or political roles in the administration that do not require Knesset approval. The President is considered the "chief diplomat" of the nation, and is considered the final authority on the Kingdom's foreign affairs. He may sign treaties and other diplomatic agreements with the advice and consent of Knesset. He may issue pardons or commutations. He may issue presidential decrees to ensure the proper administration of government, regulations, and laws (but future presidents may revoke in their discretion). From 1952-2020, the President was de facto commander-in-chief of the RYDF by order of the Royal Reform Acts but this power was nullified by King Hezekiah III and then repealed by Knesset. However, the President still has day-to-day authority to command military forces.
Judicial branch
See also
