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Posts Tagged ‘moshe feiglin’

Michael Weiss Supports Banning Palestinian, But Not Israeli Jewish Racists

Friday, July 1st, 2011

This is getting to be a habit.  I seem to have gotten under Michael Weiss’ skin.  He takes umbrage with a minor error in my blog post attacking his hysterical coverage of Sheikh Salah’s banning.  I said that his Henry Jackson Society brought Doron Almog via video uplink to speak at a British conference on avoiding Israeli accountability for war crimes.  I did that because a British blogger informed me that this was the case.  It turns out that the the overall conference was sponsored by Dore Gold’s Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and that the Jackson Society paid for Gold to attend.  Almog, who was featured on a panel together with Gold, appeared thanks to Gold’s group.  Got that?  You can be forgiven for having a bit of trouble following all the permutations of sponsorship.  You go to the conference page and see if you follow it any better than I could.  But that’s it.  That’s the extent of his rebuttal of my claims against him.

So what has he refused to address?  An awful lot it seems.  I’ve noted that while Weiss raves about Sheikh Salah’s alleged anti-Semitic outbursts, he says nary a word about similar anti-Muslim outbursts by Israeli Jewish leaders too numerous to mention including, but not limited to foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.  I pointedly asked Weiss whether he supported their banning.  Whether he supported the banning of settler extremist and Likud party leader Moshe Feiglin, who actually was banned by a previous Labor government.  Not a word from Weiss on those much more salient, substantive issues.

So let’s challenge him again, Michael, tell us what your specific view is on entry to Britain for Israeli Jewish racists.  What are your criteria to justify banning alleged Palestinian racists and are there any Israeli Jews who would justify banning?  Do you support the banning of Feiglin?  Lieberman?  Rabbis Dov Lior or Dov Wolpe, who are the Jewish “spiritual” equivalents of Salah’s supposed anti-Semitic views?  By the way, Michael, if you know Hebrew, which is doubtful, you should read this Haaretz article about Lior which notes that while he publicly supports the murder of Palestinian children, Salah does not support the murder of Israeli Jews.

Weiss also rewrites history I’m afraid, about our past when he was an editor at the ill-fated online magazine, Jewcy.  What actually happened, as opposed to what Weiss claims, is that he invited me to transfer my blog to Jewcy, which was a big move for me to consider since it meant my blog would essentially be owned by Jewcy as I understood it.  I told him initially that I was interested.  He said he would send me a contract to review.  And then I waited, and waited, and waited.  And I called him a few times asking in a friendly way what was going on.  He always replied that things were in the works and I’d receive the contract shortly.  But it never came.

Then, after two months or so of waiting, the Gaza war intervened.  In looking through the Jewcy site, I noticed 20 posts or so addressing the war in various guises.  I counted two posts that could be construed to be even remotely critical.  Weiss only refers to one writer, Adam LeBor, as offering this view.  There was probably at least one other.  So I began to think of what I would represent in such a mix of right-wing pro-Israel coverage.  At that time, I didn’t know Weiss to be the spiteful, mean-spirited egotistical fellow I now know.  So I called him in an attempt to ask forthright, candid questions about the editorial content and direction of Jewcy.

Eventually, he became so angry he told me to take a hike in an incredibly vicious, vitriolic fashion.  Which was fine with me.  In fact he did me a favor.  Within a week or so of Weiss’ banishment, came news that pro-Israel neocon Michael Steinhardt and the other money-bags behind the venture were pulling the plug.  Then Weiss himself was out of a job.  It seems to have stopped his U.S. literary career in its tracks as he made his way subsequently to England, where he’s become the toast of the tawdry tabloid circuit with his Telegraph blog.

Jewcy’s imminent demise was likely the real reason he never sent the contract.  But, as he seems to prefer opacity over transparency, he didn’t want to let me know the website was about to go belly up and they couldn’t have paid me if they’d wanted.

Among Weiss’ other vain attempts to demean me he talks nonsense of a long night of the soul regarding whether I should move my blog to Jewcy.  To which, all I can say is that at least I have a soul.  Where his should be there’s an empty place filled with hollow words and silver-tongued vitriol.

I wonder why Weiss never told his readers at Harry’s Place about Jewcy’s demise and the real reason he refused to send that contract?

While you’re there take a look at the comment thread and note the high level of discourse there including pathetic ad hominem attacks on my physical appearance.  It’s makes the threads here look like the Oxford debating union.

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Weiss’ Knickers in Knot Over Sheikh Salah

Thursday, June 30th, 2011
michael weiss fire breathing dragon

For behold, The Weiss breathed fire and smote the wicked, racist enemies of Israel

Michael Weiss, that insufferable, braying pro-Israel zealot, has his knickers in a knot over Sheikh Salah’s visit to England.  The Telegraph blogger began his crusade before Salah arrived, with a shot across the bow on June 22nd, in which he crowed about alleged anti-Semitic statements made by Salah.  Though a number of Weiss’ claims are based on the notoriously unreliable MEMRI and Jerusalem Post, at least one is based on a Haaretz report.  That paper is by no means universally reliable, it is surely a more serious source.  So let’s get this out of the way, since it will surely be Weiss’ first shot when he reads I’ve had the temerity to cross him yet again after his purported Syrian government memo claiming the intelligence services led the Naksa Day protests which led to 15 dead at the hands of the IDF.

If Salah has said the things he’s alleged to have said by Haaretz then he is a truly dim figure and anti-Semite to boot.  But I would note that there are laws against incitement in Israel and though Salah has been charged with violating those laws he’s never been convicted.  I would think if he did say any of these things it should’ve been fairly easy to convict him.  Though again, I’m not making any claims regarding whether or not he said what MEMRI and the others allege.

Further, the Israeli government has attempted to ban the Sheikh’s Islamic movement, but the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the effort.  As Ian Black asks in The Guardian:

The real question about the episode is this: if Salah is tolerated in Israel, why did the UK government object to his presence?

Further, there are several anomalies in Weiss’ coverage and in his omissions from the record.  First, he neglects to mention that Salah was nearly killed by an Israeli Border Police bullet to the head in the first Intifada in 2000.  Second, he neglects to mention that Israeli media reports there are recordings of the Shin Bet asking accused Jewish terrorist Chaim Pearlman to assassinate Salah.  Third, in Weiss’ first Telegraph post he also neglects to mention an important claim that he does make in later ones, that Salah was banned from entering Britain.  This is important because later Weiss and other pro-Israel supporters claimed that he had been banned a week before his entry into England.  This would make it appear that Salah was up to no good, possibly used fraudulent documents to gain entry, etc.  The Israeli Palestinian leader’s own attorneys claim he was never aware of such a ban and that he entered England using his Israeli passport.

Now, it’s clear that immigrations officials do stupid things all the time in the U.S., Britain and Israel.  But to allow a wanted man to enter Britain, especially an allegedly wanted Islamist—this strains credulity.  Not to mention that Heathrow immigration authorities would’ve had the plane’s passenger manifest and would’ve had early warning that he was planning to land.  Of course, Weiss and others might insinuate that he traveled under a false name or whatever.  But there is no indication this is true.

What appears to have happened was that Weiss’ report spooked the Home Office and they immediately banned Salah, who may already have entered Britain.  When he writes on June 28th that Salah “somehow” entered Britain a few days earlier, he makes it appear that his entry was based on fraud on the Sheikh’s part or incompetence on the government’s.  When in truth it was likely based on fear of being beaten over the head by Weiss and his Islamophobic cronies.

But now let’s talk a bit about Michael Weiss’ hypocrisy.  No matter how shady Salah’s alleged views about Jews may be, I bet the pro-Israel blogger never uttered a peep when Moshe Feiglin tried to enter Britain (did you, Michael?).  Then the Home Office (under a more liberal Labor government) banned Feiglin for his undesirable racist views of Arabs.  Has Weiss ever said that any Israeli racist such as Avigdor Lieberman should be banned from England?  I could list twenty or thirty of his more disgusting comments made in the Israeli Knesset and on television about his fellow Palestinian citizens.  But the former Moldovan bar bouncer and Kach party member is OK, isn’t he?

And if we want to talk about flaming racists, has Weiss ever uttered a word about Israeli Orthodox rabbis who urge that Palestinian citizens be put in concentration camps or that it’s just to murder their children lest they grow up to kill Jews.  Yes, rabbis have said those things.  Would you support their banning, Michael?  And if so, will you write to the Home Office encouraging them to do so?  I can provide the names and sources for their comments (and they’re not from the Palestinian version of MEMRI, but from mainstream Israeli press).

Even more importantly, Weiss’ Henry Jackson Society arranged for that handsome, dashing IDF officer Doron Almog to speak via video conference to a gathering of the pro-Israel flock eager to hear the good general opine on the topic, Ending Impunity or Decreasing Accountability?: Averting Abuse of Universal Jurisdiction.  There would appear to be more than a little bit of self-interest in Almog’s appearance at such a gathering.  Almog couldn’t speak in person because there was a little matter of a warrant for his arrest for ordering the deaths of 18 Palestinian civilians including women and children when the IDF assassinated Salah Shehadeh in 2003.  And lest Weiss blame British law for the ‘nonsense’ of holding potential Israeli war criminals responsible for their actions, we should remember that it is Israeli NGOs like Yesh Gvul and Anglo-Israeli human rights lawyers like Daniel Machover, who have spearheaded these efforts.

No matter what you wish to say about Sheikh Salah, he’s never murdered a soul.  You can’t say that about Doron Almog.  What’s more, Weiss surely thinks it an outrage that such a man who ordered a bombing that killed Palestinian woman and children should be banned from Britain.  What irks me about the pro-Israel flack is that he likes to play the morality card, as if his are universal values based on justice and morality, while Arab or Muslim values are based on racism and hate.  He’ll never admit to you that there are just as many Israeli Jewish racists as Palestinian, and that many of them are welcome to visit England whenever they wish.  In fact, I’d venture to say Weiss has broken bread in his adopted country with a few of them in his role as one of Israel’s chief apologists.

He’d do a lot better if he calmed down and wrote as many posts about the audacity of Doron Almog and Moshe Feiglin entering England, as he has in the three posts which he’s filled with the spew of yellow journalism regarding Sheikh Salah.

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Israel’s Loyalty Oath: Let’s Drink to New Jewish Republic

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

It seems a virtual certainly that sometime in the coming weeks Israel’s rightist government will pass a law requiring new citizens to affirm Israel as a Jewish state.  As currently formulated the law would only require such an oath of non-Jewish citizens, which would effectively bar most non-Jews, especially Muslims or Arabs, from becoming citizens.  As such, the law would be racist on its face and likely rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court. Bibi Netanyahu is calling for amending the bill so that it includes all new citizens including Jews, hoping that this will pass muster with any justices who may have quibbles over the law’s diminution of democratic values.

As one of my commentators with whom I rarely agree wrote:  it’s an answer to a question no one is asking.  There are very few non-Jews seeking to become citizens of Israel.  So the oath is a political provocation by Avigdor Lieberman meant to gin up hysteria and support among his far-right nationalist base.  As I’ve written here, the only reason this bill will become law is as a quid pro quo from Bibi to his farther right allies hoping to retain their support when and if he extends a settlement freeze.

One of the very strange outcomes of this law may be to deny Israeli citizenship to Jews.  Since few Arabs seek to become citizens and mainly Jews do, it is the Haredi Jews who seek citizenship who would be barred from it, since they refuse to acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state in pure halachic terms.  Wouldn’t that be a delicious irony?  I’m guessing that the State will find a way to create an exemption for the ultra Orthodox allowing them to circumvent the entire oath process, just as it does to exempt their children from military service (though on different grounds).

israelis demonstrate against loyalty oath

Thousands of Israelis protest against Lieberman loyalty oath (Tal Cohen)

Aux armes, citoyens!  My interest tonight is strategizing how the progressive left should respond to the eventuality of the passage of this bill.  Two days ago, Israelis held a large rally denouncing the loyalty oath.  A good start.  But I think we should prepare for a longer term campaign against this racist law.  We should prepare a series of acts of resistance.  For example, I can see a rally on the day the law is passed with a mass of Israelis proclaiming en masse an alternate oath affirming Israel as a state of all its citizens regardless of religion or ethnicity.  I’d love to see an oleh chadash (new immigrant) leading such an oath-taking as a symbolic but powerful protest.

I would begin asking American Jews to withhold whatever portion of their UJA contributions are designated for Israel.  Jewish leaders tend to avoid and ignore issues unless there are financial ramifications that harm fundraising campaigns or cause deep embarrassment.  This issue could cause both.

We must also continue to point out that such a law will reinforce a slogan that hasn’t been widely heard since the 1970s when the UN General Assembly passed a “Zionism is racism” resolution.  At the time, many of us disagreed strongly with such sentiment.  But can we honestly do so now?  Yes, there are those of us who can argue that Zionism as we express and define it is different than what passes for Zionism in arch nationalist right-wing circles in Israel.  But that may be too much subtlety for the world to bear when it sees an Israeli government prepared to use a sledge-hammer domestically and on the world stage to define itself and its interests.

At another earlier protest, an Israeli professor likened this bill to the 1935 Nuremberg Race Laws which set the stage for the Holocaust:

Israeli educational psychologist Prof. Gavriel Solomon said that “the idea of Judenrein or Arab-rein is not new… Some might say ‘how can you compare us to Nazis’. I am not talking about the death camps, but about the year 1935. There were no camps yet but there were racist laws. And we are heading forward towards these kinds of laws. The government is clearly declaring our incapacity for democracy.”

A state which needs such oaths is a state unsure of its own identity, lacking self-confidence, perhaps sensing unconscious guilt at the injustices that lie  at its foundation.  It signifies a state at war with itself.  That is why you don’t see firmly established democracies like the U.S., Britain, Germany, France racing to affirm their identities as Christian nations.  These are countries more or less comfortable in their own skins.

When it affirms this oath as law it will cease being Israel and become the Jewish Republic, as Gideon Levy writes.  And let us be very clear, they are not the same thing.  Jewish citizens should no longer be called Israelis, but rather Judeans.  At that point, Judea or whatever you want to call it might just as well have a king as a Knesset.  Let’s call him Yvette I, shall we?  Let’s rebuild the Temple and install Moshe Feiglin as High Priest.  King Yvette can reign from Jerusalem and have his winter palace at Nokdim (the settlement he calls home), just as Herod built his at the fateful Masada.

It’s at this point I seek to join the party of Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai, who, according to a legend some claim to be apocryphal, could see the handwriting on the wall during the Roman siege against Jerusalem.  He escaped the city in a coffin during a period of plague, negotiated with the Roman general conducting the siege, who allowed him to flee to a little town called Yavneh.  There he established a rabbinic academy that sought to come to terms with the trauma of the destruction of the Second Temple, and hence laid the groundwork for the survival of the Jewish people as they scattered to the Diaspora.

In other words, Lieberman and even Bibi are sowing the seeds of Israel’s destruction.  It’s really plain and simple (but also horrible).  If you are prepared for this to happen you will stand and watch.  If not, you will do something to object, to resist.

We should remind Israeli and Diaspora Jewish leaders that the specter of BDS hovers over ever such Israeli act and strengthens the movement.  This reinforces the notion that Israel is its own worst enemy, and that all its opponents need to do is sit back and watch as Israel virtually destroys any credibility or sympathy it may retain on the world stage.  Indeed, such laws perfectly illustrate the Midrash which states that the Holy Temple was destroyed due to the sinat hinam (senseless hatred) of two brothers for each other.  Today, we’re looking at an Israel which destroys itself inch by inch while the rest of us (or at least some of us) look on in horror and disbelief.

To conclude, let us all say no to a state that defines itself solely in religious terms; to a state that affirms that Judaism is its dominant religion; to a state that subordinates democracy to religion; to a state that is Jewish to the exclusion of all else and all others.  Ours is a vision of an Israel that affirms and values the religions of all its citizens; that offers equal rights to all citizens; that embraces all ethnicities while derogating none (including Judaism, lest dyed-in-the-wool Zionists claim that this means the death of Israel or Zionism).

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Yaalon Looks to Fascist Right for Support in Likud Leadership Struggle

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Bibi Netanyahu is facing no particular internal political threat (though he faces an external one in the shape of Barack Obama), yet his competitors for Likud party leadership are still jockeying for position.  Bogie Yaalon, former IDF chief of staff and current minister of strategic affairs, sees himself as a future prince of the Likud.  To become party leader, he apparently sees his best chance by allying himself with fascist right.  That’s why he spoke at an event this week honoring Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Manhigut Yehudit far right faction of the party.  In case you’re wondering where to place Feiglin on the political spectrum, think an amalgam of Geert Wilders, Meir Kahane, Jean Marie Le Pen and Jorge Haider:

Here is but a single statement out of many that I could offer:

“Hitler was an unparalleled military genius. Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status. The ragged, trashy youth body turned into a neat and orderly part of society and Germany received an exemplary regime, a proper justice system and public order. Hitler savored good music. He would paint. This was no bunch of thugs. They merely used thugs and homosexuals.”

Feiglin’s views are so extreme that the British foreign office declared him persona non grata there, meaning he can’t fundraise among his fellow British Kahanists.

Here is a selection of Yaalon’s more offensive statements at the event:

“I, for one, am not afraid of the Americans,” Ya’alon said in the speech, which was reported by Channel 2′s Amit Segal. “I believe that Jews have the right to live anywhere in the land of Israel forever.”

In the speech, Ya’alon also denounced the power of the press and other “elites” in Israel to make or break politicians and lashed out at the extreme Left. He also called Peace Now “a virus.”

Feiglin praised Ya’alon at the rally and committed to him the support of Feiglin’s Manhigut Yehudit ideological forum in Likud, which has become increasingly powerful in the party’s institutions. That support could aid Ya’alon in an eventual run to lead the party.

Most observers of Israeli politics will not be surprised at any of this. Likud has long been the home of some of the most stridently nationalist politicians in the country. But it is still somewhat unusual for a Likud party leader to support overtly those who ardently espouse the political views of Meir Kahane.  After all, while he was alive the man was considered persona non grata and practically a Jewish terrorist by most of the nation.

This development indicates to me that had Kahane lived he would not be in jail, but rather a minister in the current government and a potential Likud party leader. Those who care about Israel must be alarmed by the alliances made by politicians such as Yaalon.  We are rapidly losing the Israel some of us once knew.  It is being replaced by a state lapsing into proto-fascism.

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Bogie Yaalon’s Excellent Adventure with Feiglin, Kahane Kids

Monday, August 17th, 2009

A journalist friend of mine attended a recent lecture by Bogie Yaalon, former IDF chief of staff and Likud minister in the current Israeli government. Nothing unusual in that. He was introduced by Moshe Feiglin, one of the most extreme pro-settler leaders and a fellow Likudnik. That’s a bit odd but still nothing terribly out of the ordinary.

In order to attend this Likudnik soiree my friend had to call a local activist to RSVP (for all I know he may’ve had to provide the password: “Never again!”), who happened to be Nitza Kahane, Meir Kahane’s daughter-in-law.  When he called, the phone was answered by Meir Kahane–no not THAT Meir Kahane, the great man’s grandson.  Now that IS interesting.

Peace Now anti-Bibi banner: "In Jerusalem, I established a bi-national state!"

Peace Now anti-Bibi banner: "In Jerusalem, I founded a bi-national state!" (Menachem Kahane/AFP)

Here’s what my friend had to say:

I met Nitza, and Meir jr. – respectable looking, very determined people.

In other words, not a bearded right-wing prophet with a messianic zeal in his eyes like grandpa Meir.  Nice people.  The kind you could bring home to meet bubbe and zeideh.  Imagine what all this means: that had Meir Kahane lived he would not be in herem, he would be a minister in the current government.  It means the Likud has been willingly taken over by the pro-settler extreme right.

Baruch Marzel's message to U.S., Obama, and moderate American Jews: Drop Dead!

Baruch Marzel holding banner with message for Obama (whose first name he misspells) and his American Jewish supporters: Drop Dead!

One of Feiglin’s most interesting comments of the night was: Ani lo rotzeh shalom (“I don’t want peace”).  This means that the Israeli wingnut right doesn’t even want the status quo, they want a war to the death with the Arabs.  Nuclear Armageddon if necessary I imagine.  It is therefore no accident that Mike Huckabee is palling around today with his settler buddies like Irving Moskowitz at the Shepherd Hotel.  The evangelicals and settlers want the same thing: a war to the death against evil which will lead to some kind of messianic age.

We should rememeber that one of Feiglin’s partners in crime is Baruch Marzel, another devout Kahanist.  Here is an image of Marzel at a demonstration at the Shepherd Hotel today.  The banner’s text tells you all you need to know.  For the Israeli extreme right this is a war to the death.  They will take no prisoners.  They will lie, cheat, steal in order to preserve the status quo.  If they could get away with assassinating Barack Hussein Obama, “anti-Semite Jew-hater,” or any Israeli politician who stood in their way they would do so (as they have done in the past).  Accordingly, we must recognize that we are not dealing with rational human beings who can be reasoned with.  They are no different than the anti-abortionists prepared to murder the Dr. George Tillers of this world.  They are on a holy crusade and need no approbation but for God’s.  And God is definitely on their side.

But do we want to ride the bomb down to the target as Slim Pickens’ character does in Dr. Strangelove??  Will we go along for this wild, insane in fact, ride?

If Barack Obama doesn’t maintain the same iron resolve and determination in pursuing his Middle East agenda, then all will be lost.  We must win against these evil people.  If we don’t, then Israel will eventually cease to exist as it currently does.  The first image above illustrates this point.  I love Bibi’s maniacal smile as he talks on his cell phone.  The caption gives you the impression that all of his wild-eyed machinations will end with Israel becoming the very thing he most detests: a bi-national state. Thanks to Sol Salbe for pointing out the sly bit of historical Zionist irony in it. The caption twists the original quotation from Theodore Herzl who, on returning from the first World Zionist Congress in 1897, wrote in his diary: In Basel, I founded the Jewish state.” What delicious irony!

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Feiglin New Rightist Power Behind Likud Throne

Saturday, December 27th, 2008
Moshe Feiglin: penetrating stare of Jewish fascist

Moshe Feiglin: crisp persona and penetrating stare of Jewish fascist (credit: Creagency)

Gershom Gorenberg has written a stunner of a political appraisal of the role Moshe Feiglin and his far-right allies will play in Likud before and especially after the next national election.  Feiglin is an Orthodox extremist settler leader who toiled in the political trenches of far-right splinter parties until he cottoned on to an idea David Duke had some time ago.  Instead of laboring in political obscurity, take over the major party nearest to your ideology.  In this case it was Likud.

In the last leadership primary, Feiglin (remember again that his views are somewhat akin to Duke’s in an Israeli context) garnered 25% of the vote to embarrass Netanyahu deeply.  In the most recent primary, Feiglin and his allies chipped away further at the party leader: not only did Feiglin place 20th on the list which would’ve made him a certain MK winner (party leaders later used technicalities to move him to 36th), but many of his ideological soulmates placed high in the list as well.  Gorenberg argues that no matter how centrist Netanyahu tries to paint the party, the newly empowered extremists will weigh him down like an albatross.  The Israeli journalist speculates that even IF (a big “if”) Netanyahu would want to engage in territorial compromise with the Palestinians after becoming prime minister, the rump right wing caucus could muster the support to nix such an initiative or anything that even smacks of craven capitulation to the enemy.

Here are some of the more shocking beliefs that Feiglin holds:

On the Jewish Leadership website, [he] proposes principles for a constitution for Israel. It would include a high rabbinic court, chosen only by clergy, that would overturn any legislation it saw as contradicting Jewish religious law. A newly established senate, with a guaranteed Jewish majority of over 80 percent, would have to consult the rabbinic court on all national issues. Israel would lay claim not only to the West Bank and Gaza, but also to all of Jordan.

…He proposes…holding a ceremony at every army base in which all non-lethal weaponry would be destroyed. Faced with Palestinian demonstrators, soldiers could only shoot to kill…Another Feiglin tract contrasts parliamentary democracy with an “authentic Jewish regime” that would express the “organic unity of the Nation of Israel.” Put simply, Feiglin’s ideology is the meeting point of fundamentalism and fascism.

In support of the author’s characterization in the last sentence of this passage, consider this passage from the Wikipedia article on Feiglin:

In a 1995 interview with the Haaretz daily, in which he spoke disparagingly of Hitler and Arabs, Feiglin called Hitler “an unparalleled military genius.” Feiglin also said “Hitler savoured good music. He would paint. This was no bunch of thugs. They merely used thugs and homosexuals,” Feiglin was quoted as saying at the time. “Nazism promoted Germany from a low to a fantastic physical and ideological status.  The ragged, trashy youth body turned into a neat and orderly part of society and Germany received an exemplary regime, a proper justice system and public order,” he said. Yediot Aharonot daily said Feiglin “was not ashamed of considering Hitler a genius.”

Gorenberg concludes his essay with this warning about the false ‘branding’ of Likud under Netanyahu’s leadership:

The campaign packaging for the Likud will show Netanyahu’s face. In his modulated MBA voice, he’ll try to sell the Likud to voters as a pragmatic conservative party, willing to make peace if only the Palestinians agree to its conditions. Inside the package, however, is a party in thrall to a lean and hungry man offering extremist leadership for Israel. The question is whether voters will look inside, or care.

This week’s Haaretz election poll (I always warn that such polls are volatile and no guarantee of what will happen on February 10th), shows that Likud has been hurt by the revelations that the party has been hijacked by the far right.  It lost 6 votes and now gains 30 seats.  Kadima also lost one seat and now has 26.  Labor lost one seat down to 11.

The real news however, is that losses by the major parties have translated into serious gains for the parties of the left and right.  Shas now has 13 seats (gaining 4), Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu has 11 (gaining 2), the extreme right Bayit Yehudi has 6 (gaining 2).  Meretz would win 8 (a gain of 2).  If the election were held today, Netanyahu would have no trouble forming a comfortable rightist government.

If I were Tzipi Livni I would scare the bejesus out of the Israeli electorate with every extremist idea or statement Feiglin and his cronies have ever made.  I would ignore Netanyahu and make Feiglin her opponent.  Make it a campaign about whether Israel will turn fundamentalist and become a nation dominated by a right-wing God and the settlers or retain a centrist political approach to national issues.  To the extent that she does this, and does it vigorously and even with relish, she might be able to make inroads in Likud support.

Personally, I don’t see Livni as either charistmatic or a particularly good campaigner.  So I don’t see her necessarily adopting my approach.  She needs to do something to stir up the pot.  The momentum is with the right.  If she does little or nothing to change that, she loses and we all lose (i.e. those who want to see a peaceful resolution of the conflict).

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