Comparison of Israeli and Iraqi Coalition Parliamentary Governments Research Paper

Comparison of Israeli and Iraqi Coalition Parliamentary Governments - Research Paper Example Under such circumstances, in order to avoid political stalemate, small parties may support larger parties to get majority in the parliament and to form the government. Instead of a government led by a single party as in the case of United Sates, a government led by multiple parties (Coalition government) may take charge in countries like India, Israel, Iraq etc. Unlike governments led by single party system, coalition governments cannot function independently because of the different views, opinions, ideologies and policies of the members of the different political parties in the coalition government. This paper compares the influence of ethnic groups or culture upon Israeli and Iraqi coalition governments. Analysis Methodology Iraq and Israel are the two prominent countries in Middle East which have coalition governments at present. However, Israel and Iraq are entirely different countries as far as culture is concerned; Arabs or Muslims dominate the population in Iraq whereas Israe l is the Jews’ state. It should be noted that these two countries have different ethnic groups. Each ethnic group and each region in these two countries have separate political parties which argue for the interest of the particular community or region. Israel is a Jewish country whereas Iraq is a Muslim country. However, clashes in Iraq between different ethnic groups are more than that in Israel even though both the countries have coalition governments at present. I would like to compare the functioning of these coalition governments in order to learn more about the influence of cultural differences upon the functioning of coalition governments. Influence of ethnic groups or culture upon Israeli coalition government Political parties in Israel can be classified into two broad categories; Zionist parties and non-Zionist parties. non-Zionist parties are negligible in number and strength. Labor Zionism (social democrat), Revisionist Zionism (conservative) and Religious Zionism are the major political thoughts among Zionist parties. Out of these three political philosophies, Religious Zionism is comparatively weaker than the other two which is the major reason why the influence of religion upon Israeli politics is comparatively lesser than that in Iraq. Israel’s new coalition government (created in January 2011) has become more conservative in its domestic policy position and more hawkish in its foreign policy stance. A series of events in recent months highlights this trend, including disagreements between Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama regarding an appropriate basis for peace negotiations with Palestinians, Israel’s response to the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation deal, and its response to clashes with Palestinians along its borders in recent months. In addition, the country’s changing demographic profile signals that conservative political groups are likely to exert more influence over the medium-t o-long term as well1. As in the case of many other countries in the world, conservative parties and liberal and democratic parties are more in Israel also. Conservatives normally may not give up their traditional beliefs and tougher stands on global issues easily. On the other hand liberal and democratic parties usually keep a space for accommodating changes in line with the political and economic developments in the world. One of the major curses facing by Israeli politics is the excessive number of political parties which keep extremely different views on