‘Feiglin to Announce He is Leaving Likud’

[I think it would be the right move for Feiglin.]
by Gil Ronen, INN
Moshe Feiglin, head of the Manhigut Yehudit oppositional faction within the Likud party, has decided to leave the Likud along with his movement, Makor Rishon reported Friday.

Feiglin has reportedly called a meeting of the central activists in Manhigut Yehudit for Sunday, in which he intends to announce his decision. He will recommend that the movement seek its political home outside Likud. On the record, Feiglin would only tell Makor Rishon that “we are in a period of internal inquiries that will last about two weeks and we are involving the activists in the dilemmas.”

Speaking with Arutz Sheva’s Uzi Baruch Friday, Feiglin did not deny the report but said: “The movement already announced a week ago that it would be choosing its options vis-a-vis Netanyahu – including the possibility of another contest with Netanyahu a year from now, as well as leaving the Likud.”

A senior source within Manhigut Yehudit denied the Makor RIshon report and said that the meeting of activists will not be held this Sunday but one week later.

Feiglin joined the Likud 10 years ago, out of a conviction that the multi-party system does not really work in Israel, and that the only way to seize leadership is through the largest party, Likud. He vied twice for party leadership and failed both times. Feiglin was in the party’s 20th slot for the Knesset in the last elections, but legalistic and political maneuvers by Binyamin Netanyahu forced him out of that slot and prevented his entry into the Knesset. It should be noted that Feiglin never seemed to content himself with the goal of getting elected to a Knesset seat, but was intent from the outset on becoming the party’s leader.

Before forming Manhigut Yehudit, Feiglin led ‘Zo Artzenu’, a high-profile protest movement against the Oslo process.

Feiglin, who is considered a bright and creative mind by his supporters and foes alike, also writes a weekly column in one of the leading news websites.

Netanyahu nemesisLikud leader Binyamin Netanyahu has seen Feiglin as his nemesis within Likud, and accused him of trying to effect a hostile takeover of the Likud with the aim of turning it into a religious party. “We are not an extremist messianic party; we are a national and liberal movement,” he said ahead of the latest confrontation with Feiglin.

That confrontation took place late April and centered on an internal Likud vote to change the party’s constitution in a way that would put off to 2011 the elections to its central committee. The move was seen as a bid to prevent Feiglin from gaining strength in the party’s grassroots leadership and to give Netanyahu time to add more moderate grassroots members to Likud, to offset the ones that Feiglin had brought in.

Feiglin said the showdown would ultimately determine the fate of Jerusalem. Netanyahu, he warned emotionally, wants to silence opposition in the Likud because he has made a secret pact with US President Barack Obama that involves partitioning Jerusalem. Several Likud Knesset members, including Danny Danon, Tzipi Hotovely and Yariv Levin, also opposed Netanyahu’s move – but Netanyahu succeeded in passing the resolution anyway.

This last failure is what seems to have convinced Feiglin to leave the Likud and essentially abandon his decade-long project.

A source within the National Union estimated Friday that the NU would issue a call to Likud members who followed Feiglin to join the NU instead. NU leader MK Yaakov (Ketzaleh) Katz has said that Feiglin’s political strategy was not completely above board in that it called on people who did not really vote for Likud or believe in its path to become official party members. That enabled them to have a voice in determining the party’s list but it was not certain that they voted for the party in the ensuing elections. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

May 7, 2010 | 64 Comments »

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14 Comments / 64 Comments

  1. Tar Yag
    Nothing has been deleted. This system is better for replying to a specific comment. Click on Reply under the comment and your reply will be right under the comment and indented.

  2. Tar Yag
    Nothing has been deleted. This system is better for replying to a specific comment. Click on Reply under the comment and your reply will be right under the comment and indented.

    I also “replied”. Look above.

  3. 1. in the old version, the comments had numbers and one could better reply

    2. my response to shy has been deleted, why?

  4. It’s your argument,

    Shy, I don’t present an argument, I comment on issues and try to keep it simple.

    My particular comment on anti-Semitism was merely to say in many ways it’s not acceptable and should not be tolerated. The problem and difference with my “G-d hates anti-Semitism” is based on the fact anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews for nothing other than being Jewish. In the eyes of G-d I am sure you will agree it’s not His idea or a good reason to hate.

  5. ron how do you know that G-d doesn’t like antisemitism?

    At the risk of being viciously attacked for drivel-mongering, I agree with ron.

    The only relevant biblical passage (Deuteronomy 7:6) here relates to which group the Lord identified as being His Chosen.

    Hint: It wasn’t the Zulus.

  6. Hey, don’t knock it.

    I’ve made a substantial amount of money by writing wishy-washy drivel.

    Comment by ayn reagan — May 10, 2010 @ 4:40 pm

    Yeh but here Ron is giving it away for free! That’s crazy!

  7. Now back to this business of attacking you. It’s not you. It’s your argument, which I described as “wishy-washy drivel”.

    Hey, don’t knock it.

    I’ve made a substantial amount of money by writing wishy-washy drivel.

  8. For those who don’t know me, the above statement is not true, it was said for the benefit of Shy who for some unknown reason feels it necessary to attack me personally.

    In fact each morning I include the Jews and Israel in my prayers.

    Comment by rongrand — May 10, 2010 @ 4:25 pm

    I really don’t understand your problem.

    First of all, it wouldn’t be so terrible if you did thank G-d for not making you a Jew, for the reason given. Not handling the millenniums of hate would be quite human. Second, your morning thoughts are appreciated, thank you.

    Now back to this business of attacking you. It’s not you. It’s your argument, which I described as “wishy-washy drivel”. And I’m surprised the arguments came from you because I simply assumed that you already knew of the verses which I (and Yamit) quoted to you.

    I’m sorry. I should not have called your claim “wishy-washy drivel”. I will call them by the friendlier Yiddish term “buba kishkes”.

  9. I wake up each day and thank G-d I wasn’t born a Jew because I don’t think I could handle anti-Semitism or the hate directed at Jews.
    Comment by rongrand — May 10, 2010 @ 3:21 pm

    For those who don’t know me, the above statement is not true, it was said for the benefit of Shy who for some unknown reason feels it necessary to attack me personally.

    In fact each morning I include the Jews and Israel in my prayers.

  10. Meaning of the Holocaust?

    I had a christian acquaintance (certainly not a friend). We were discussing the Holocaust and christian guilt. He said, “What christian guilt? The Jews deserved to die. And how do I know that? Because if god did not want it to happen, he would have saved the Jews. So the christians aren’t guilty of anything. They were just god’s instrument carrying out his will.”

    So what do we know now? We know what goyim are capable of. We know there are not enough “good” goyim to help us. We know that if we do not fight back hard enough and soon enough, then the goyim will gladly slaughter us a second time.

    Jewish prayer and Jewish fighting go hand in hand. They are two words in one, like “shomer v’zakhor”. The Torah instucts us to have the war-kohen remind us what it means to be Jews before we go into battle. Legend goes that Jews at first would not fight on Shabbes. The goyim then simply waited until Shabbes, and slughtered the Jews. After that Jews did fight on Shabbes.

    So Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.