Q&A with Moshe Feiglin: Why Doesn’t Zehut Join up with Rightist Party Otzma Yehudit?

What can possibly be achieved by merging Zehut with Otzma Yehudit? The Right has been in power for most of the years since 1977 and is continuously gaining strength.

If a purely rightist government (without Lapid and Livni) doesn’t manage to deal with a kite…but does manage to destroy settlements one after the other, to torture young boys for no reason, to surrender on the Temple Mount and on every other significant front…If after the IDF destroys an empty car, all of southern Israel has to enter bomb shelters for a night of missiles – and the next morning, everything is back to ‘normal’ (in other words, Israel is deterred by the Hamas), then what will you get with more of the same?

Can it be that the Right is not the solution, but rather, part of the problem?

Soon we will be publicizing the new forward to the 2018 edition of my book, “Where There are no Men”, which analyzes the true source of the problem.

It is important, however, to understand: Zehut’s goal is not to play the familiar game of the Right, which always leads to more retreats.

Zehut has set its sights on a true revolution. And revolutions do not happen by themselves. Revolutions happen with the nation. My goal is not to enter the Knesset as some sort of intra-parliamentary protest. My goal has remained to create a leadership alternative with a completely different plan of action.

I like the Otzma Yehudit people very much, but with all due respect, they express just the opposite. They are part of the cat and mouse game between the two hands of Zionism: Right and Left. The Right is incapable of stating what it wants. All it can say is what it does not want. With that, you cannot go to the public and offer it an alternative. Zehut – for the first time in the annals of Zionism – is a nationalist party, loyal to the Nation and the Land, that does not march on the path set out by the Left (or against it, offering no real alternative). Instead, it offers a real alternative in the economy, housing, education, security – in everything.

A merger with Otzma Yehudit will create an insoluble contradiction between our declarations and our political body language. It will distance a lot of potential voters to whom we are turning with our unique message of liberty. Even if it would be a sure ticket to a Knesset seat, it will distance us from our goal. We do not see ourselves as part of a political camp or bloc – certainly not of the camp that is responsible for most of the destruction of Jewish homes. We will continue to work independently, with loyalty to the Land of Israel and not to a particular camp.