Diaspora Jews often want to tell Israelis how to vote – and how, more generally, to run their country. After all, as Jews, we feel we have a stake in what happens in Israel, and many of us feel comfortable offering our opinions of what should happen there.

While people should be encouraged to voice their opinions, there’s no corresponding obligation requiring Israelis to pay even the slightest attention. Indeed, for very good reasons, they should not. We in the Diaspora should be happy if our telling Israelis what to do is met with polite indifference. But we should also be prepared for withering scorn.

We might get information via the news media (usually incomplete and biased) on some issues affecting the upcoming Israeli election. Our interest is typically piqued by the “sexy” ones such as security and conversions. But given that we don’t live there, we may possess little or no information about many other important issues. And while democracy is based on “the right to be wrong,” we should remember that we won’t have to pay the price for an error – only Israelis will.

There’s a whole other world of important issues in the upcoming Israeli election, such as “social welfare,” internal aspects of the economy, health care, income support programs, and many more. Many Diaspora Jews have little interest in, or understanding of, these issues. We require far more information than we can ever assimilate from the outside. Only living in Israel can bring home the reality of the needs, wants and possible solutions to be considered in the social-welfare sphere.

Many Israelis will be making their election decisions based on information from the media, just as we might. However, they also live in Israel and absorb its realities directly. Given that we cannot share the risks of a mistake (i.e., electing the “wrong” government), it is impertinent for us to suggest how Israelis should vote and what government they should elect. The most we’re entitled to do is encourage fair, respectful and honest discourse in the election process –  something that is as needed and as rare here in Canada as it is in Israel.

It’s also incumbent on Diaspora Jews to remember that Israel employs a governmental system that is radically different from the British, Canadian and American systems. We sometimes look down on the Israeli approach to electoral politics as chaotic and unworkable. But the truth is, of the three systems – British/Canadian, American and Israeli – the latter is by far the most democratic, if by democracy we mean allowing, or even encouraging, minority voices to be heard.

This upcoming election might be fought and won on issues of security, or it may be fought and won on issues of social welfare and the economy. Most likely, individual voters will make their decisions based on a number of issues, at least some of which do not reverberate at all outside Israel. What may be important to one voter may not be important to the next, even if they vote for the same party.

Where does all that leave us interested, well-wishing bystanders? We should attempt to understand what the elections are about, learn what we can about the various positions taken, and encourage respectful acceptance of the result, however much we might find it uncomfortable. We should advocate strongly for restrained rhetoric, for honest and fair and serious debate. Above all, we must promote and publicize the fact of Israeli democracy – even if it may be different in form from ours, scary in its rhetoric and chaotic in its appearance.

Israel is a functioning democracy governed by the rule of law, and there’s nothing more one can ask of a political system. Ultimately, outsiders have no business trying to influence the outcome of this, or any, Israeli election. We must strongly remind ourselves, and the world, of this. 

Simon Adler is a litigation lawyer in Kitchener-Waterloo.