Netanyahu, Obama, Abu Mazen Summit

By Moshe Feiglin

5 Tishrei, 5770
Sept. 23, '09

What does Abu Mazen want?
Abu Mazen, (who holds a Soviet doctorate for his Holocaust denial thesis) wants to destroy Israel - just like every other Jew-hater in the world. Like every reasonable Moslem Arab who lives in Dar el Islam (a.k.a. the Middle East) that is polluted by the Zionist entity, Abu Mazen would also be pleased to carry on with the murders, rapes and mutilations that we all remember from the Arab riots of 1929, 1936, Israel's War of Independence - and from every opportunity that the Arabs in the Land of Israel have had to express their unique talents.

But in the meantime, Abu Mazen's immediate goal is to perpetuate the current situation. At the present, he needs Israel to prevent the Hamas from taking over Ramallah and throwing him off a local rooftop. He also has to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state - at any price. Why? Because in addition to all the honor and authority that he enjoys even now as "head of state", he would actually have to take responsibility for the Arabs of Judea and Samaria. Abu Mazen is not a pushover. He knows that as soon as there is "peace" he will interest no one. What will he do then? Take care of the sewage problem in Bir Zait?

Sound confusing? Just wait for the rest. For now, just remember that Abu Mazen needs to talk peace and to present Israel as intransigent.

What does Obama want?

The places in which Obama grew up and was educated, the mentors and events that, as per his own testimony, shaped his personality and world view - do not leave room for sweet speculation. Obama is a dangerously radical leftist who willingly subjugates himself to the most radical Islam.

Obama wants to appease all the dictators of the world - first and foremost, of the Moslem world - at Israel's expense. Anti-Semitism has always been subtly present in American governments. But the common values shared by the US and Israel had always afforded the two countries a basis for cooperation. Obama is past all that. As opposed to the previous US presidents of this generation, Obama sees no justification for Israel's very existence.

In the meantime, what is important to Obama is to talk peace and to appease the Arabs by presenting Israel as intransigent.

What does Netanyahu want?
This is the hardest question. The analysts in Israel can't seem to decide if Netanyahu would like to retreat but cannot, or if he can retreat but does not want to. As we are not mind-readers, we will try to get to the root of the matter.

What Netanyahu wants is what the State of Israel has wanted since it was established and even before that. A state wants to be normal, a country like any other country, a nation like any other nation. To accomplish that, Netanyahu needs to keep up normal relations with the US and the western world. The paradox is that the more that Israel surrenders its strategic and tangible assets (its land, settlements, army checkpoints) as well as its principles (recognition of our very right to a Jewish state) the more that the nations distance themselves from her. The more that we surrender our unique identity and destiny, the more that we insist that we seek only peace - the more that we become an international pariah.

But Netanyahu has nowhere to run. The concepts of holiness, of Israel's uniqueness and of Jewish rectification of the world are completely foreign to him. All that he can do is to continue to play the peace game and to hedge his bets that Abu Mazen will back down first.

In summary:
Abu Mazen wants to perpetuate the current situation.
Obama wants to appease Islam.
Netanyahu wants the US and the West to stop pressuring Israel.

The only one of the three who will get exactly what he wants is, of course, Abu Mazen.

Manhigut Yehudit in the News: Jerusalem Post

Click on picture for the JPost video of the event
JPost: Likud's far right appeals to Anglos

Sep. 23, 2009
Josiah Daniel Ryan , THE JERUSALEM POST

Execute prisoners on Hamas's negotiation list until captive soldier Gilad Schalit is released, shut down Army Radio and win the top spot in the Likud leadership.
That's how Shmuel Sackett and Moshe Zalman Feiglin, the founders of far-Right Likud faction Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership), marketed their party to a group of English-speaking immigrants in Jerusalem on Tuesday night.

"Each one of you has a role to play in changing the direction of the Jewish nation," said Feiglin. "Our alternative is going to win, and it's going to lead Israel."
The only question, he said, "is how long it will take and how much suffering we will go through before it happens. There is no other way. It may sound bombastic, but Israel has no chance of surviving without Jewish Leadership."
Feiglin fielded a series of questions from the audience of about 25, most of whom said in a quick poll that they were already registered Likud members.

In response to a question about how he would deal with the Schalit issue as prime minister, Feiglin said he would immediately execute half of the prisoners named in Hamas's negotiation list and execute another one each day Schalit was not released.
"We have atomic bombs, and we cannot rescue a soldier 10 kilometers away?" asked Feiglin. "We take a list of what they want and simply kill half of them, and every day he is not released, we kill another one. If they kill him, then you attack, and you make sure there is not one Hamas leader who stays alive."

In response to a question about how to control the "left-wing media," Feiglin said he would not touch privately owned newspapers, but that he would refuse to speak to several outlets, eject members of his party who did and shut down Army Radio.
"There's no reason why we should pay for a station that is a totally leftist radio station," said Feiglin.

But both Feiglin and Sackett made it clear that they were recruiting immigrants to Likud and that despite conflicts within the party's central leadership, they would not endorse splintering into further factions.
"In order to leave tonight, you have to sign up and join Likud," said Sackett, adding, "We will never start another political party. The right wing has way too many parties as it is. To splinter more is ridiculous."

Feiglin and Sackett cut their teeth in national politics opposing the Oslo Accords, which Feiglin said he blamed for the 9/11 attacks in the US and the suicide bombings that followed in Israel.

The Facebook page that advertised the gathering in Jerusalem's Katamon neighborhood touted Feiglin "as Bibi's biggest political threat," and in his remarks Feiglin said Netanyahu and the media feared him.

"We know it's real from the way Netanyahu is afraid of us and the way the media is afraid of us," he declared.

Rosh Hashanah 5770: A Message from Moshe Feiglin

For a written transcript of Moshe Feiglin's video message click here:

Jewish Justice or no Justice

By Moshe Feiglin

Translated from Makor Rishon

"Today the world is being born, today all the creations of all the worlds stand in judgment." "And it will be determined for the countries, which for the sword and which for peace." (Rosh Hashanah liturgy)

As we enter the gates of our synagogues this Rosh Hashanah, it looks like we will also be entering the gates of the International Court in The Hague. This is the inevitable destination of a nation that insists on detaching its Judaism from its national life. If we are not interested in Jewish justice in Jerusalem, we will be treated to Western, Christian justice in Spain, England or The Hague.

When a Swedish newspaper reported that Israel's soldiers slaughtered "Palestinians" so that they could sell their organs, we didn't believe that anybody would take the bizarre story seriously. But it is actually making quite a few waves. Soon an international investigative committee will be established to reveal "the truth." After all, such serious charges must be investigated thoroughly. And who, if not the judges of enlightened Europe, are more worthy to reveal the truth with clarity and complete objectivity?

Blood libels are nothing new. There is nothing more logical about selling "Palestinian" organs than about slaughtering Christian children to use their blood to bake matzahs. So how do these absurd claims become legitimate? It is not really a matter of legal fact. It is a matter of the location of the judicial body.

When a Jew is in exile and the Christians are the judicial authority, the blood libel becomes a possibility. The question is not if the Jews slaughtered Christian children to use their blood to bake matzahs. The question is if the issue is justiciable. In the Christian courts of the Middle Ages the answer was affirmative.

Likewise, in the current organ harvest story, there is no question of revealing the truth. The only question is if the judicial tribunal that we have accepted upon ourselves will decide to judge these ludicrous accusations.

Then – in the days of the blood libels, the Jews did not have the option to choose which judicial authority they would accept. They lived under the dominion of the judicial authority that considered these libels fact. But today, the Jews willingly surrendered their own judicial authority. They chose, of their own free will, to forgo their ethical sovereignty and to deposit it in the hands of the Western world and the International Court in The Hague.

"What is the problem in Azoun?" my frustrated neighbor asked me the other day, after a steady stream of rocks and firebombs has continued to emanate from this 'peaceful' Arab village. "They bring in an entire IDF division and they still can't stop the violence? Wouldn't it just be easier to cut off their electricity?" Technically, my neighbor is right. We could easily leave the reserve soldiers at home and enjoy quiet nonetheless. But the State of Israel and the IDF are fettered to the Christian judicial dominion that we have brought upon ourselves.

As the Beijing Olympics approached, I wrote that the State of Israel, as the representative of the Jewish Nation, should boycott the games. The Chinese have established concentration camps for opponents of the radically leftist regime there. Next to the concentration camps there are "medical centers" that specialize in supplying human organs by order. No lines, no problems finding the proper match, any organ can be supplied; kidneys, corneas, hearts – the organs are always fresh and plentiful. They belong to "criminals" who have been executed but who, at the last minute repented and donated their organs as an act of atonement. How noble. In reality, the organs are harvested while the victims are still alive. That is probably the best way to keep them fresh.

I claimed that Israel - the representative of the Jewish Nation, the People of the Book who herald the ethics of the prophets – must see itself as a lighthouse of morality for the world and should not lend legitimacy to the regime of horrors in China by attending the Olympic Games.

The reactions that I received were more or less: "America, England and France are not boycotting the Olympics, and you expect Israel to boycott them?" In other words, it cannot be that we bear a more fundamentally ethical insight than the Western world. Furthermore, we are so small, so who are we to boycott the Chinese giant if the US and Europe are not doing so? In other words, morality is measured in square kilometers and the size of a country's population and army.

When charges of organ harvesting by Israel's soldiers began to emerge, I thought that it was quite "measure for measure." We rejected our universal role and refused to take a stand on the Chinese organ harvesting issue, and got it right back in our own collective face.

We are the children of the King. We do not have the privilege to stand passively at the sidelines and to be "just another country." We have only two options: One is to judge the world according to Jewish justice – the ethical justice of the prophets that must be restored to Jerusalem. The second option is, right after Rosh Hashanah, to re-lock our universal responsibility safely in our synagogues and to leave Judaism strictly in the domain of religion. If that is the option we choose, we will not be judging the world according to the ethics of the prophets. The world will judge us – in the International Court in The Hague.

Why I Did Not Attend the Likud Settlement Conference

By Moshe Feiglin

As this article is being written, the Likud Conference for Settlement scheduled for today at Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv has not yet taken place. But I will not be there. Please allow me to explain why not.

First, a brief history lesson:
Zo Artzeinu, the movement that I had the privilege to co-found with Shmuel Sackett, was responsible for Israel's largest and most effective campaign against the Oslo Accords. (Not surprisingly, the Yesha Council publicly opposed the Zo Artzeinu protest.) But at the end of the protest campaign, the heads of Zo Artzeinu were charged with sedition and sentenced to jail terms, while PM Netanyahu, who had won the elections on the coattail of the public protest, warmly shook Arafat's hand and announced that he had found a friend. Most of Hebron was surrendered to the terrorists, the Oslo process continued and Bib re-channeled the nationalist energies that had been invested to stop the disaster into perpetuating it.

Netanyahu gave Oslo right wing grass-roots legitimacy and turned the idea of land surrender into a fait accompli. The fact that Netanyahu has just announced the most total and severe building freeze in Judea and Samaria ever should surprise no one. It did not take a lot of foresight to understand that this is exactly what he would do.

Time and again, reality has proven that Israeli leadership that is not committed to basic fear of Heaven - be it the admired ideologue Menachem Begin, or the war hero and settlement builder Ariel Sharon, or the "intransigent" Yitzchak Shamir (who was actually the best of them) or the sophisticated Binyamin Netanyahu - is incapable of guarding the Land of Israel and the State of Israel. Without leadership that will guide the Nation of Israel with faith in the G-d of Israel and in its historical goals, settlements don't have a chance. Neither does the entire state.

With that in mind, the goal of Manhigut Yehudit is to establish faith-based leadership for Israel. That is why we entered politics. But there are forces within the national camp that do not understand why Jewish leadership is a prerequisite for the continued growth of the settlements. These forces insist that Manhigut Yehudit is harming the settlement movement.

When Sharon ran against Netanyahu in the Likud primaries, Yesha leaders claimed that my candidacy was harmful to the settlements because it took votes away from Netanyahu. The Yesha Council even turned it into a campaign slogan: We love you Feiglin, but we're voting Netanyahu."

When Shaul Mofaz ran against Netanyahu, the very same leaders claimed that my candidacy would harm the settlements because it weakened Netanyahu against Mofaz. When polls showed that I would be getting more votes than Mofaz, they did not reach the logical conclusion and support me.

It is not only the race for leadership of the Likud over which the Yesha leaders lose sleep. My inclusion on the Likud roster somehow also harms settlement. In the last Likud primaries our valiant Yesha leaders from Kfar Maimon spent a small fortune to explain to the Likud members that they should not vote Feiglin. Pinchas Wallerstein, the perpetual head of the Yesha Council (and not a member of Likud) begged the listeners to Israel's popular morning Channel 2 radio show not to vote Feiglin. Why not? It's bad for the settlements.

If tomorrow, for example, Gidon Sa'ar and Bogie Ya'alon will run for leadership of the Likud, the Yesha Council will undoubtedly explain that I should not run because it harms the settlements and takes votes away from Bogie.

And when, with G-d's help, I will be elected to be Prime Minister, the Yesha Council will go on national radio to explain how bad it is for the settlements.
Now, the Yesha Council has organized a conference to support the settlements. At first, they invited us to attend. But then a small clarification was made. I would not be included in the list of speakers. It is the Kfar Maimon syndrome all over again. If the Yesha Council people censor their list of speakers to please the man against whom they claim they are protesting, then they do not want to triumph. Just like they didn't want to win in Kfar Maimon. We've already been there and done that, and have no intention of going the same route again.

Today's headlines in Israel's news portal Ynet confirm that our decision not to attend the conference was right:
Likud ministers to attend Yesha Council meeting in support of PM
Ministers, MKs said to attend council's conference at Likud Tel Aviv headquarters in order to support Netanyahu's planned settlement freeze

The equation is clear. A true battle must include Feiglin. Without Feiglin at the Conference, it will turn into a Support Bibi and the Building Freeze event. In the next primaries, the public will remember who allowed Netanyahu to freeze the settlements, who encouraged him and who genuinely fought against him to create a Jewish alternative to Oslo.

The nationalist public is much smarter than the Yesha Council. The struggle to establish true Jewish leadership for Israel is also the struggle for the Land of Israel and the State of Israel. It is good that the weaknesses of the Yesha Council are being exposed at the Conference, which is of minimal importance - and not in the heat of the next race for the leadership of the Likud.