As Netanyahu hits 19 years in office, Israel must confront the case for term limits - editorial

Democracies place limits on majority rule not to thwart the will of the people but to preserve the system through which it is expressed. Term limits are one example.

On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked a milestone: 19 full years as Israel’s prime minister.

Those years came in three nonconsecutive stints - from 1996 to 1999, from 2009 to 2021, and from December 2022 until today. Cumulatively, it is an astounding amount of time for one person to lead the nation. Netanyahu has served as prime minister for roughly one of every four days since Independence, and for nearly two of every three days since 1996.

For Netanyahu, this is an impressive political achievement. For the country, however, it raises a question: Is it healthy in a democracy for one leader to remain in charge for so long?

The obvious response is: Why not? This is what the people want. Netanyahu has repeatedly won elections – or more precisely, assembled governing coalitions. That is the people’s will.

But democracies place limits on majority rule not to thwart the will of the people but to preserve the system through which it is expressed. Term limits are one example.

Opposition parties support limiting prime minister's tenure

In 1951, six years after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, following four election victories and just over 12 years in office, the US ratified the 22nd Amendment, preventing anyone from being elected president more than twice.

The main concern was keeping power concentrated in one president’s hands for too long. There was also political motivation: Republicans drove the effort after being shut out of the White House for so long.

Both impulses are present in Israel. The four “change bloc” parties – B’Yachad, Yashar, The Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu – have all backed limiting the prime minister’s tenure, though they have not agreed on a formula.

Term limits have substantive benefits for Israel

They are undoubtedly motivated partly by political considerations: They do not want Netanyahu, or anyone else, to block them from power indefinitely. But political motivation does not necessarily invalidate a reform. Republican frustration with Roosevelt did not make the 22nd Amendment inherently undemocratic.

Term limits also have substantive benefits for Israel.

While limits on prime ministers are rare in parliamentary democracies – where parliaments can remove the prime minister – they are not unheard of.

Hungary amended its constitution this year to cap a prime minister’s service at eight years, following Viktor Orbán’s 16-year uninterrupted run. Thailand also imposes an eight-year limit. Israel need not reject an idea merely because few similar systems have adopted it.

Too much time in power can be unhealthy for both the leader and the country. Long tenure can breed entitlement: the sense that someone who has governed for so long is owed certain privileges.

More dangerously, it can foster the perception that one person is irreplaceable, blurring the democratic distinction between the leader and the state. The leader is not the state; the leader serves the state.

An expiration date would also encourage leaders to focus on achievement and legacy rather than endless political survival.

Also, term limits would force parties to cultivate new leadership. A prime minister who intends to remain indefinitely has no incentive to groom a potential successor. As a result, talented figures are pushed aside, and the public is encouraged to believe no viable alternative exists.

Regular transitions are healthy. New leaders – even from the same party – bring fresh eyes, are less bound by their predecessors’ assumptions, and can reset relationships at home and abroad that have become stale or poisoned.

Israel’s current experience suggests another compelling reason: Term limits can serve as a democratic pressure-release valve. They reassure those bitterly opposed to the government that no leader will remain forever and that renewal at the top will come at a known interval through the political system.

That would not eliminate demonstrations, nor should it. Protest is a legitimate democratic tool. But a predetermined endpoint can help prevent people from feeling that permanent protest in the streets is the only conceivable route to change. Term limits do not guarantee that another party will take power, but they do guarantee turnover at the top and create the possibility of a change in direction.

Term limits are no cure-all, and they will not resolve every weakness in Israel’s political system. But after 19 years under one prime minister, the burden of proof should no longer rest solely with those proposing them. It should rest with those arguing that unlimited tenure is healthy.