“We cannot rely on an election to solve our problems.” — Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), House Judiciary Committee chairman, Dec. 11, 2019, on the need to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump
“Every legal precedent must begin at some point. … So, just because it involves the prime minister, we should delay the precedent for another time?” — Shai Nitzan, Israel’s state prosecutor, May 8, 2019, on the decision to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery
Israel and the United States are very different in many ways. Geographically, they are separated by the width of an ocean and the breadth of a continent. The population of the United States is almost 40 times that of Israel’s and its land mass more than 450 times bigger than that of the Jewish state. Israel was founded on an ethos of socialist collectivism; America on an ethos of capitalist individualism.
There are also wide differences in the political systems of the two countries. The United States has a bicameral legislature (the Senate and the House) while Israel has a unicameral one (the Knesset). In Israel, the composition of the legislature is determined by a nationwide multiparty election in which the number of seats allotted each party is proportional to the number of votes it won, out of the total number cast; in America, it is determined on a state-by-state basis in which the winner takes all, and all votes for the loser are discarded. Israel has a parliamentary system in which the head of the executive branch is selected from the ranks of the legislature; the United States has a presidential system in which the head of the executive branch is not a member of the legislature.