Moshe Feiglin, the leader of the Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) faction in the Likud party, failed in his bid to enter the 18th Knesset. Likud received only 27 seats – far from the 36 that were needed for Feiglin to conquer a seat in the Israeli parliament.
Now that election results have sunk in, a debate has begun raging between Feiglin's followers and detractors. The followers continue to call upon right-wingers to register as Likud members, despite Feiglin’s failure. They see the new Knesset as unstable and temporary and believe a new contest for Likud leadership will follow in the near future. His detractors blame him for mobilizing thousands of right-wing voters for a move that seems to have led nowhere.
Writing in Arutz-7’s opinion page, Jewish Leadership Managing Director Michael Fuah repeated his faction's position that the only way for the nationalist-religious camp to gain leadership of the country is by unseating Binyamin Netanyahu and taking over the Likud. Netanyahu, Fuah explained, is unable to create a right-wing government because of his overpowering need to appease the leftist legal and media elites.
Fuah said that the general Israeli public is ready for a G-d fearing leadership. Before Netanyahu managed to bump Feiglin to the 36th spot on Likud’s list because of a technicality (after he had been elected to the 20th spot), Fuah notes, polls were giving the Likud 40 seats. After Feiglin was unseated, Likud’s poll numbers began to plummet and right-wing voters began migrating towards Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Home) party.
Fuah called on “tens of thousands” of religious voters to join Likud’s ranks and make Feiglin its head.
Feiglin's Flawed Logic
Fuah’s article drew numerous talkback responses and was followed by a counter-article by Attorney Dov Even-Ohr. Even-Ohr diagnosed what he said are several essential flaws in Jewish Leadership’s thinking.
Feiglin, he said, wants religious voters to join Likud so that he, Feiglin, can get elected to be its leader. This comes at the expense of Ichud Leumi (National Home) and the Jewish Home, he notes, and winds up putting leftists from the Likud list in the Knesset.
Another problem with Feiglin’s logic is this, according to Even-Ohr: “Who can give us a guarantee that if Feiglin succeeds in taking over the Likud, the people will vote for such a Likud to lead the country?”
Even-Ohr says that as long as Feiglin is in the minority within Likud, it is he who is “in the pocket” of Binyamin Netanyahu and not the other way around.
“If Feiglin is so talented and such a leader, why can’t his qualities affect the people from within a true right-wing party, instead of leaning upon the Likud’s crutches? And why should the people want Feiglin as Prime Minister only if he comes from within the ranks of the Likud, but will refuse to crown him if he runs in the Ichud Leumi?”
Even-Ohr contended that as long as Feiglin is in the minority within Likud, it is he who is “in the pocket” of Binyamin Netanyahu and not the other way around. Feiglin was forced to swallow the humiliation of being knocked down to 36th place, he said, because if he had come out full-force against Netanyahu for the dirty trick, the resulting row would have cost Likud seats. For the same reason, he says, Jewish Leadership cannot take part in any anti-government protests. Only after the election can Feiglin afford to come out and attack Netanyahu because of this “iron cage” he has put himself in.
Whoever wants a model Jewish state that will be a light upon the nations, explained Even-Ohr, “must plant a new tree and not continue to sit on the branch of a rotten tree.” Feiglin, he says, “is trying to paint over a hollow branch, thus deluding himself and – what is worse – deluding others who do not see the danger in this.”
Even-Ohr’s article, too, has been drawing a flurry of talkbacks. The debate seems nowhere near its conclusion.