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.
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