Three top candidates vying for the religious Zionist vote in Israel's upcoming Knesset elections shared the stage of Tuesday Night Live this week, debating in English on the popular show, filmed live in Jerusalem.
Yaakov 'Ketzaleh' Katz, the Yom Kippur War hero and settlement movement icon who established Beit El (and Arutz-7) represented the National Union, which he was asked to head recently. Moshe Feiglin, the former protest leader who launched the Jewish Leadership faction within the Likud and has been the main contender struggling with Binyamin Netanyahu for leadership of the party, argued in favor of voting Likud. Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, a mathematician from Haifa's Technion, agreed to head the Jewish Home when it was being constructed as an amalgamation of all national Religious parties.
"Only With Us..."
Starting off the evening, Katz (National Union) asserted that his party is the only way to be true to the ideals of the Jewish people. "We represent everything that the people here in this room believe," Katz said. "Only with us can you be sure that there will be no Palestinian State. Only with us are we sure that there will be no Disengagement. Only with us are we sure that Hevron will not be given up. Only with us we are sure that good people like Feiglin are not in the 36th seat -- but maybe he'll be in the first or second or third."
Katz's opening statements were a dig at Hershkowitz, whose party will not rule out sitting in a government that engages in withdrawals, as well as Feiglin, who, due to legal maneuvers by Netanyahu is number 36 on the party list -- not a realistic spot for the party that currently has 12 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
Katz said he knew Netanyahu "from the first moment, when he started to run to be prime minister. He was Ambassador to the UN and he called me up and we ran together. And believe me, we made him what he is today. I can say today that Bibi (Netanyahu's nickname) needs a lot of help and with G-d's help, it's a possibility -- in the last election he had 12 seats and we had 9 seats -- we are not far away. Maybe there will be a revolution and with a lot of help from G-d we will have the 25 seats, and we will govern the next government."
Host Jeremy Gimpel asked Katz: "Why should we vote for an ideological party rather than a party that can really be an influence in the country?"
Katz: "Because we are the core of [all of the] values of what we believe. By the way, I am holding a poll in my jacket -- a poll from Globes that we have 6 seats today -- which is very, very important. We are running for more than ten seats and people who know me know I have run many, many revolutions in my life... We always did things that people didn't believe that we could do. Thank G-d, finally big things got done. You mentioned Arutz-7, but when I worked with Arik Sharon we built over 60,000 housing units. We put a ship offshore to broadcast for fifteen years with a lot of self-sacrifice. And the same way we built the settlements, that way we will reach the day when Ketzaleh will be prime minister."
Katz added that, "By voting for the National Union we can have 15 Feiglins in the Knesset instead of one, who is not even being elected."
Three Factors: Land, Nation and Torah
Professor Hershkowitz took exception to Katz's assertions that only the National Union would prevent the threats facing the National Religious public. "You see, the existence of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel is based on three factors: the nation of Israel, the land of Israel and the Torah of Israel. These three cannot be separated and no one can exist without the other two. And the only home that looks at all three of these factors is the Jewish Home. You see, when the Jewish Temple was destroyed, if you ask a historian why it happened, he'll tell you because the Jewish people lost on the battlefield to the Romans. But the Gemara doesn't even mention the loss on the battlefield or the political loss, it says it was because of social problems.
"In order to take care of this land, we have to build every settlement in every part of the Land of Israel - but not only that, you also have to strengthen the education in every part of the Land of israel, you have to strengthen the economy in every part of the Land of Israel, you have to strengthen the society in every part of the Land of Israel -- and that's exactly the platform of the Jewish Home."
Unity Almost Breaks Out
Jeremy: "So I don't understand, it sounds like you and Ketzaleh are saying the exact same thing -- why won't you run together?
"Let's declare it here on Tuesday Night Live that the Jewish Home and National Union are running together...", Gimpel said, and Abramowitz added "with Feiglin at the head," to smiles from the audience.
"That's exactly the question I am asking," ruminated Prof. Hershkowitz. "If you asked me two months ago whether I would ever ever find myself in politics, the answer would absolutely be negative. Because I got some offers in the past and I declined immediately. The only reason I agreed to join Bayit Yehudi is because, as you know, the National Union with all its parties, and the National Religious Party joined together. They were a Yin-Yang of these parties. And this is exactly what attracted me to the Jewish Home. Unfortunately, some people decided to split from this party. They are not here. Although they are in Ketzaleh's party, I think to be fair to Ketzaleh -- he was not part of that split. At the time he was not in politics. Only later he was called upon by his friends -- by the rabbis -- to head that party. But actually, it's a question that still today I don't have the answer -- why they split. Because we all share the same values, the same principles, the same goal. So that's a question I still have today and I don't think anyone on the stage here tonight knows the answer."
How Can We Vote Likud?
Ari: "Moshe Feiglin, you probably could have been in the Knesset many times over, but you've joined the Likud. You say you want to bring it to its original values and to Torah. Why should we vote for Likud?"
Feiglin: "Because we need Jewish leadership and we are not going to reach it from our own sectors. It is very simple: If you want to lead the Jews, lead the Israelis -- then go to them, be a part of them. And the Likud today is the only cradle where Jewish leadership is going to rise and develop, in and through. And the fact that my candidacy in the Likud -- even just to the Knesset list -- attracts so much attention and so much fighting, shows that this is the right place to be -- because it is real."
Feiglin commented on the slogan of the National Union: Without any fear at all. "I like that slogan very much," he mused. "But then, why run back to our own backyard, playing with our own people -- who like us, who agree with us, who look like us -- thinking that through our own sector we will be able to lead the nation of Israel. It is not going to work this way. We should not be afraid to go to the Jews. They want it. They like it. They love it. We should vote Likud, we should join the Likud, we should lead Likud and only through Likud can we lead the nation of Israel."
A clip of various prominent Likud member, including Netanyahu, voting for the expulsion of Gaza's 8,000 Jews and the destruction of their communities, was aired as a question to Feiglin. "Why vote for the 35 Bibis before you on the list?" -- asked Gimpel.
Feiglin displayed that day's newspaper, which featured Likud insiders saying Netanyahu is now seeking to lose Likud mandates to keep the over-30 MKs on the list out of the Knesset. Many of those candidates are associated with Feiglin's Jewish Leadership faction.
"We just heard that with National Union there will be no Palestinian State and no Disengagement," Feiglin said. "I wish it would be true. I like Ketzaleh very much and wish it were true. But Ariel Sharon didn't lose a moment of sleep due to either the National Union or National Religious Party. He lost sleep due to the political battles inside the Likud, due to the '14 rebels' as he called them. So, make no mistake, I am in the Likud for Jewish leadership - but if you want the place where the political struggles are waged on behalf of the Land of Israel - the only effective place is also in the Likud."
Katz: Feiglin Very Naive
Queried on how he would inspire the people of Israel, Katz answered:
Ketzaleh: "I will tell you what I did in my life. It is also an answer to Moshe Feiglin, who is a very naive guy. A revolution starts with one and ends with hundreds of thousands. When I went to my commando unit, we were the only 3 religious guys ever. Before that there were none with knitted yarmulkas. They were all from kibbutzim [socialist collectives]...But we made the revolution. When I went to the graduation ceremony of my own children, 50-60% of these units were boys with knit yarmulkas... 'oranges.' Revolutions start with one and in the end we have thousands and finally we are running the country... We started with few and today we are running the army. We started with a few in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and today we have, in the areas liberated in 1967, over 650,000 Jews. We started with few when we were running the education ministry and now we have up to 15 seats, and we will run the country!
"Finally we'll have a Prime Minister who will be religious. Finally we'll have a Defense Minister who will be frum. We don't have to apologize, we don't have to feel that we are small. We are the best and we are going to run the country because we have a past, so we will have a future."
Heroism and 'Arik'
Asked about his army service and reputation as a war hero, Katz recounted: "I was serving as an officer in a commando unit under Ariel Sharon -- in Sayeret Shaked. I am not allowed to say anything bad about Ariel Sharon," he joked, "because he saved my life."
Katz had been wounded in a battle he and a dozen fellow soldiers had to wage against 80 Egyptian commando troops... "We killed all of them in the fighting, but I was very badly wounded -- cut into two pieces," he recalled. "My driver and one of my soldiers behind me was killed. Arik Sharon sent a helicopter to rescue me."
For the next 25 years, Katz was Sharon's main consultant, serving as Sharon's deputy minister of settlement assistance from 1990-1992. "Together with Arik Sharon we did many many great things. He always used to say, 'Ketzaleh, I don't understand how you love me so much but don't believe a word I say.'"
The Likud will Spit in Your Face
Taking his turn at arguing why the Likud is the wrong choice, Prof. Hershkowitz described the courtship with the Likud every election season in no uncertain terms: "Every 2-3 years, the Likud spits in our face," he said. "Just before the elections, they call upon the National Religious public to vote for them. And people are tempted think for a moment like Moshe, that maybe the way to change things is from the Likud -- from a party that after all is not based on our values -- not based on the Torah, Land and People of Israel.
"The day after the elections they will do it. They will spit in our faces. And they do it the same way every time to Moshe. Next time he will be the 37th position, maybe the 47th. This is very sectorial thinking.
"We should employ a very narrow view of our needs. You see, I want to keep the whole Land of Israel -- OK? You see, the point is, holding the Land of Israel now -- there is a big threat to that. But the threat is not only that they destroyed Homesh, or that they froze building in all of Judea and Samaria. That is a threat, but three weeks ago I visited a non-religious high schoool in Modiin. They asked students what Shema Yisrael was. The most popular answer was "Shema Yisrael is a song by Sarit Haddad If the students in Modiin do not know what Shema Yisrael is, they don't know what we are looking for in Shechem, or Hevron, or Jerusalem or Haifa. You see, the next prime minister may come from Modiin. And if we are led by people that aren't aware of our basic values, who don't know that this piece of land belongs to the Jewish people and only the Jewish people -- if they do not know it, then they will not hold on to it."
Hershkowitz expressed his hope that the parties would yet reunite and that Feiglin's constituency would also join what he says he hoped will be a movement.
A Prime Ministerial Question
Ask what he would do his first week in office, Feiglin focused on the unspoken assumption of such a question:
"I am proud you are asking this question," he said. "Because I believe, in all honestly, that I am the only one sitting here that it is a relevent question for. I don't think I'm better than Ketzaleh or Professor Hershkovitz, but I am in the right ballgame."
Feiglin answered Hershkowitz's criticism of Netanyahu and the other Likud MKs with sarcasm. "Now I am more sure than ever that you would not join a Netanyahu government -- only one led by [Kadima's] Tzipi Livni," he said. "Because Netanyahu is so bad, etc. etc."
"Look, voting for Ketzaleh or Hershkowitz, you are actually voting Bibi. Are either of them going to go with anyone else? By voting Likud you are getting me and the other loyalists who can guard Netanyahu from within, instead of being outside and irrelevant."
Feiglin reflected on the difficulties of his chosen path. The night before he declared that he was running for prime minister of Israel was the scariest of his life, he said. "I feared people would say, 'He thinks he's Napoleon.' I said to myself, maximum they will laugh at me. I have to do my part. Well you know something: now no one is laughing. But not only is no one laughing, we are sitting here tonight. The reason why my dear friend Ketzaleh is sitting here tonight talking about leadership is because of that night ten years ago. We managed to get this idea of Jewish leadership to the nation."
Feiglin remains confident that, whatever the way, a leadership faithful to the principles and traditions of the Jewish nation will arise. "We will get there because there is no other chance for Israel to survive and flourish without leadership that worships G-d; leadership that understand that our goal is to perfect the world in the kingdom of G-d. Not just to exist, not just for some 'lull' with Hamas. That is the reason we exist as Jews and without that we don't have a right to be here at all."
As for the answer to the actual question: "The first thing I am going to do is go to the Temple Mount," Feiglin said."
Be sure to check out the second part of the debate, to be feature in next week's episode of Tuesday Night Live.