MK Moshe Feiglin
MK Moshe FeiglinIsrael news photo: Flash 90

MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu) has revealed that immediately after the government was sworn in, he asked the prime minister to place him at the head of a Knesset Committee that does not yet exist – the Committee for the Family.

Such a committee, if established, would “swallow up” and replace the existing Committee for Advancement of the Status of Women and the Committee for Children's Rights – committees which Feiglin says represent, through their very existence, a struggle against the idea of family. Feiglin also bashed Yesh Atid for advancing anti-family legislation, with the support of the religious-Zionist Jewish Home party.

Speaking at an Israel Bar Association conference on “The Rights of Children and Parents after Divorce” at week's end, Feiglin recounted: “I had to decide what position I want – a deputy minister, what do I want? I came to meet the prime minister and he offered what he offered – I accepted, I am now in the position that he offered [Deputy Knesset Speaker – GR], and I am a member of several other committees. But I told him that what I want is to be the chairman of the Committee for the Family. The prime minister told me – but there is no such committee. I said – true, but I want this committee to be established.”

"OK, it still has not been established. In its stead, we have the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women, and now the name has received an addition – 'and for Gender Equality.' I told the person who asked for the change and received it [MK Aliza Lavie, who heads the committee – GR] that this is a contradiction: either you want to advance women's status or you want gender equality. It doesn't go together. And there is another committee that supposedly is connected to the family, and that is the Committee for Children's Rights. So the woman has rights and the child has rights. Where is the family here? Does the family have rights? I guess not.”

"I think that what I just said, says it all,” Feiglin continued. “In other words, the Knesset gave a stamp of approval to the fact that there is some kind of class warfare, or gender warfare, between men and women. There is no family. There is no togetherness there. There is nothing in common that is supposed to create a sacred family value that is greater than the total of all its parts.”

Feiglin explained that the entire western world is witnessing a deconstructionist attack on basic values, the most central of which is the family. This attack hides behind terms like “gender equality,” “the advancement of women's status” and “children's rights.”

He noted that the benefits to divorced “single parent” families have created a situation in which it pays to divorce, and does not pay to get married. “You're married? What a sucker!” quipped Feiglin .

It used to be clear what a family was, he went on, and people were either married, single, divorced or widowed. “Nowadays there is a family, and a single-parent family, and a same-sex family. There are all kinds of families and all of them are legitimate. This hides behind a fake liberalism that pretends to hug everyone. How nice!... But by calling everything a family – in effect, nothing is a family.” 

MK Feiglin heads the Knesset Caucus for Strengthening Family and Community Structure.