Why Yaalon's Meet-Up with Manhigut Yehudit Bunched the Undies

Moshe Feiglin, leader of the Manhigut Yehudit faction of Likud, elaborates on why the Left is wigging out about Moshe Yaalon's speech from last week. Read Feiglin's post from 3 Elul 5769 (23 August). That warm and fuzzy feeling is what you get when someone in Israeli politics tells it like it is...

Question:
If, G-d forbid, Kassams would have hit Sderot last week, or if there had been a shooting or stabbing terror attack, would the Prime Minister have cut his vacation short, make special announcements to the press and hurriedly summon the Minister for Strategic Affairs to his office?

Another Question:
If such a terror attack had taken place, would it have commanded all the major headlines in all the major media outlets for two days?

The answer is clear. So why, when two politicians from the same party speak at a public forum and say things that are not new, does the media and the Prime Minister attach to the non-event the significance of a strategic terror attack?

Last Thursday, my picture made the front page of the Ha'aretz newspaper. The caption was: "Feiglin: With G-d's help, we will do good things together."

Wow. How fortunate we are to have courageous reporters who dare to inform the public of such a horrifying statement.

Let us make some order out of this firestorm.
First of all, we must understand that Ya'alon's statements at the Manhigut Yehudit Likud Activist Conference were nothing new. Everything that he said, including what he thinks about Israel's Left, is written in his book. He has publicly made the same statements many times. Netanyahu was never disturbed by his opinions and the media wouldn't have given them more than the status of "quote of the day" if not for the place in which they were delivered. In other words, the media fury was triggered not because of what was said, but because of where it was said.

To better understand how a meeting between two Likud members takes on the proportions of a strategic terror attack, we have to get to the root of the issue.

Since the Second Aliyah to Israel one hundred years ago, the hegemony over the Return to Zion has been in the hands of the Left. True, in 1977 there was a mini-revolution and Begin became prime minister, but it soon became clear that the Jabotinsky Right could not present a comprehensive alternative to the Zionist Left. Most of the Israeli public is rightist in its views and values, but the classic Right never attempted to develop its identity and values into a ruling alternative. That is why, despite the rightist leanings of the Israeli public and despite the fact that the public elects the Likud to rule time and again, the national agenda does not change and the leftist agenda continues to control Israel.

It's even worse than that. When the Likud is in power, it carries out the Left's agenda even better than the Left itself – despite the clear desire of its voters. Simply put, the Likud's inability to present a comprehensive alternative based on Judaism allows the Left to neutralize the Likud's victories in the voting booth and to continue to rule in Israel. Israelis already know that if you vote left, you get Left, and if you vote right, you get double Left

Enter Manhigut Yehudit in the Likud. That annoying Feiglin insists on running for head of the party and the national camp. What he is really saying is that the Jewish majority no longer accepts the old order of things. The Jewish majority demands that it wins the elections, its collective will will be expressed in reality and that the government will reflect its values.

Manhigut Yehudit has presented a true and comprehensive alternative to the Left – an alternative with faith based, historical Jewish depth. When we speak of a revolution, we are not talking about musical chairs between political clones from the Right and Left. We are talking about revolutionizing the state of Israel, its national agenda and its most basic goals. That is why we are such a threat to those people who have become accustomed to ruling Israel with no regard to the outcome of the elections. Manhigut Yehudit is the only factor that threatens their perpetual hegemony

In his first term, Netanyahu learned what happens to a politician who opposes the "elites". He understands that his political survival depends on living in "peace" with the right people. That is why Netanyahu, with the help of the Supreme Court, downgraded me from my "sure" place on the Likud roster - despite the outcome of the primaries - and knowingly paid the price of the loss of approximately 10 mandates that defected from the Likud to other parties.

Minister Ya'alon's very attendance at a Manhigut Yehudit conference has opened a crack in the wall that has been erected to isolate and de-legitimize us. As far as the elites are concerned, that really was a strategic terror attack. The hysteria that we witnessed last week was actually the elites attempt to close the crack in the wall and to restore "order" in its court.

I hope this crack gets bigger.