Writer’s stream of consciousness follows! Reader beware…
Alright, this post has been a long time coming but I’m fired up as all hell. I’m totally psyched to leave Likud, I feel invigorated and awesome, and RELIEVED that I don’t have to deal with Netanyahu’s bullshit anymore, or anyone else in that cesspool of political poisonous slime. No more looking at Likudnik.co.il, no more arguing with fellow Likudniks about Moshe, no more of this crazy whacknut disgusting crap about the Likud Constitution and going to court and getting mitpakdim and blah blah blah all this politics has been driving me mad since I joined up!
It’s done! Sweep it aside! Let all the politicians, from the ones in the Knesset to the ones in the Mercaz to the ones that are just Likud Members that spend their free time analysing the moves of asinine schmucks have their little baseball diamond and WE will move forward to the nation itself, the ones in the stands! The bleachers outnumber the players what, 2000:1 on on average day?
Everyone from Tzipi Hotoveli, who I ALMOST respect, but not quite, to Tzachi HaNegbi, who I love with all my heart and sarcasm the depths of which I have never anchored so DEEPLY, to Binyamin Netanyahu. I love you man. You are the most wonderful POLITICIAN I have ever had the honor to fight. Really, on the political front, there is no better one than you. You are an absolute master at politics. As the ancient Greeks used to say, may you live forever. We are nothing but a bunch of amateurs running on “principles” that don’t “break”. There is a lot of sarcasm in this post, but I mean that seriously. You, Bibi, are the best politician in all of Israel, ever, bar none. And you beat us.
Too bad for you that most Israelis hate politicians, and when presented with an alternative, will abandon you with zero hesitation.
But all that is not the purpose of this post! Not at all!
Here’s the point people. It’s time to separate the men from the boys. Or in relevant terms, it’s time to separate the fake Feiglinites from the real Feiglinites. In other other words, it is time to separate the petty racist Arab-hating nationalist right wingers from the true liberty lovers, those who hold freedom close to their hearts and believe in the right to live without being forced into one way of life or another.
Being a Jewish nationalist is great. I am one as well. But I am only a nationalist insofar as I believe Jews have a religious obligation to voluntarily do Jewish things like live in Israel, visit Har Habayit, give Tzedaka, keep Shabbat an Kashrut etc.
Feiglinites who are pissed that Moshe is leaving without joining any other “right wing” party, as I predicted in a previous post and which turned out to be true: Why are you so angry?
Because there are, and always have been, two types of Moshe Feiglin supporters, until now. The first are the petty nationalist “Right Wingers” who believed, until now, that Moshe is just another Michael Ben Ari, no matter how many times he’s said he is not. Moshe is NOT simply a Jewish supremacist who hates Arabs and really wants them expelled, and is just using Likud as a tactic, and is essentially the same is all the other “Right Wingers”.
Now, when push comes to shove, when he has to make a move because the Likud tactic is over, the Right Wing Jewish Supremacists who thought Moshe was only about Right Wing Jewish Supremacy with a different tactic, are all expecting him to join another right wing party and “unite the right”.
But that is not what he is doing, and now they’re all pissed as hell and can’t understand why we don’t join with Ben Ari, Bennett, Yishai, or the other “right wingers” that stand for NOTHING BUT POLITICS. Which group to give tax money to, settlers or NGO’s, how much, and other gross nonsense. Some people just never learn.
And that’s all well and good, because we were never going to get to the Prime Minister’s office with the support of a bunch of Right Wingers.
Moshe is, and always has been, the Liberty candidate. The one who stands for freedom. Most right wingers have this infantile fantasy of a Right Winger forcing Torah on everyone. They should leave. We don’t need them anymore because we are not in Likud, and we are going after the young people now. All over the country. Secular, religious, Haredi, it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
We have exited the Likud womb, as Moshe said in his speech, and gone out into the world of the majority of Israelis, who want a place to live at a reasonable cost, the government off their backs, and freedom to do what they want, and we trust in God that they want to be Jews.
It’s time to separate, for real, from the so-called “Right Wing” and become the true Liberty Wing that we’ve always been, that only a few people have ever realized until now. Shed the right wingers and bring in the young people. They will come.
And the funny thing is, when the right wingers see that Moshe is winning in the polls, even they will come back and vote for Moshe Feiglin when push comes to shove.
Now let’s move forward.
The Jewish Libertarian 
As an outsider I still find this article particularly touching, especially the moment when you show your respect for B.N. I was surprised to be honest at your words about him, and they were one of the nicest surprises I have found in the world of words, especially on the internet in the latest years. I have read idolatry of B.N. from both Jewish people and Christians, but many were kind of sappy and most vanished like winter when he undertook some of his violent actions. I am not the kind of woman who wants women in politics and army at all cost to prove a point, nor do I encourage the idea that men and women and the same kind of spirit in a different body, nor should a woman just support men and roll her eyes and be quiet if she disagrees with what they say. Well I try not to be. I do fall on the later category more often than none.
In an increasingly hypocritical political scene of Europe of the past few months (where everyone is a humanist and everyone means well, everyone is pacifist until they realize there is a sacrifice of some sort or they lose money) the only political words that stuck with my ears Netanyahu’s: “I am not afraid of being unpopular”. One may say – every dictator may feel/think/say these words – but actually what is missing altogether especially in democratic countries of the Western World is politicians selling their skin out for polls, popularity and because they are all human eventually they become addicted to the idea that they need to be loved by the people and this kind of emotional brainstorm at power is good root for dictatorship, not the acceptance of being unpopular.
Lately, blood pressure high to the brain has proven than Europa is far from having evolved to anything more than a cradle for civilization. Nothing to brag about yet for this talented and ambitious Phoenician noble-woman with power dreams that make Zeus pale in comparison.
But if you have better politicians than B.N. then definitely don’t let your people short from benefiting from them, maybe if he retires I would really vote for B.N. in the Parliament at Bruxelles. Just to balance things out if many may doubt his knowledge is adequate for such position. So to speak…
May who is blessed get even more blessed.
And who is kind of wasting blessings, should at least stop swinging in that cradle until we’re all nauseous i.m.h.o.
As an outsider I still find this article particularly touching, especially the moment when you show your respect for B.N. I was surprised to be honest at your words about him, and they were one of the nicest surprises I have found in the world of words, especially on the internet in the latest years. I have read idolatry of B.N. from both Jewish people and Christians, but many were kind of sappy and most vanished like winter when he undertook some of his violent actions. I am not the kind of woman who wants women in politics and army at all cost to prove a point, nor do I encourage the idea that men and women and the same kind of spirit in a different body, nor should a woman just support men and roll her eyes and be quiet if she disagrees with what they say. Well I try not to be. I do fall on the later category more often than none.
In an increasingly hypocritical political scene of Europe of the past few months (where everyone is a humanist and everyone means well, everyone is pacifist until they realize there is a sacrifice of some sort or they lose money) the only political words that stuck with my ears Netanyahu’s: “I am not afraid of being unpopular”. One may say – every dictator may feel/think/say these words – but actually what is missing altogether especially in democratic countries of the Western World is politicians selling their skin out for polls, popularity and because they are all human eventually they become addicted to the idea that they need to be loved by the people and this kind of emotional brainstorm at power is good root for dictatorship, not the acceptance of being unpopular.
Lately, blood pressure high to the brain has proven than Europa is far from having evolved to anything more than a cradle for civilization. Nothing to brag about yet for this talented and ambitious Phoenician noble-woman with power dreams that make Zeus pale in comparison.
But if you have better politicians than B.N. then definitely don’t let your people short from benefiting from them, maybe if he retires I would really vote for B.N. in the Parliament at Bruxelles. Just to balance things out if many may doubt his knowledge is adequate for such position. So to speak…
May who is blessed get even more blessed.
And who is kind of wasting blessings, should at least stop swinging in that cradle until we’re all nauseous i.m.h.o.
There is no political feasibility now to creating such a party.
Amir I’m confused. I asked you at the event on Monday if you were with us. You said yes. Now you’re worried about political feasability? Look, when the shit hits the fan and all the money printing explodes and the dollar collapses, Feiglin will be the only feasible thing left. It will happen this year.
Unless you’re a prophet I would be careful such a prediction. The dollar will collapse, eventually. There are so many parallels between what is happening now and what went down in 2008 (collapsing oil price, massive rise in the dollar, and so forth), that I do believe we are in the not-so-incipient stages of a downturn that will make 2008 look like a walk in the park. The “heroic” measures that central banks worldwide embarked on then are no longer feasible, as interest rates are incapable of going any lower and the banks are heavily constrained by their actions then.
There’s nothing unfeasible about Moshe’s plans though.
I disagree, Amir. There are only two parties that have concepts of how to deal with all of the myriad elements required to run a state. Likud and Labor. Labor was never an option, and Likud turns out not to be either. All of the other parties are nothing more than lobbies and pressure groups. They have their particular interests and agendas to push, and they don’t worry about the rest of it, because they know they aren’t going to actually run a country.
Moshe is going to create a third leadership party. A party where sanitation and infrastructure is ever bit as important as security and education. Where monetary policy and corporation law is not disregarded. Only Moshe Feiglin has the vision to do this right now. And sure, it may take longer than 2 months to have this ready, but Moshe has already said that it’s unlikely it’ll be ready for this election. But we have to start somewhere.
Hi Rafi,
Just discovered your blog recently and added to my RSS feed.
I’m a kindred spirit, also a Feiglinist, also a libertarian.
I’m just feeling a bit dispirited about whether our libertarian ideas are so self-evidently good and wholesome to Middle Israel. We like to kid ourselves that all it takes is for people to be exposed to the ideas of personal liberty etc. and they’ll be onside with us in a big rolling wave… but it ain’t happening. And it doesn’t happen even in mature democracies like the US or UK, where voters still overwhelmingly choose cradle-to-grave statism, and view libertarianism with active disapproval – think how the “Tea Party” label is considered a stigma by most US voters.
I thought Feiglin’s path to power via the Likud was a good idea, because could mainstream him and his ideas. But now he’s accepted defeat and removed himself from the mainstream. He’ll always pick up support from people like you and me… but I’m afraid he will never get anywhere now, because he simply will never win the hearts and minds of the statist mob.
What do you think?
Regards,
Shaul
Shaul, good to meet you! I’ve been getting a lot of comments in this vain and I’ll write a post today addressing concerns and how I see things.
Let us not forget Meretz also started with a revolutionary vision, it doesn’t mean they’ll be getting a PM anytime soon.
i don’t know, there have been right-wing parties in the past that were supposed to be an alternative to the entire nation, they failed, often because the nation does not want right-wing. otzma in the last elections, for example, was a religious-secular alliance which did not talk about sectors at all. Feiglin has certain things going for him, not least the high-profile years he spent in the Likud and his comprehensive, non-sectarian (except when it comes to Jewish-Arab sectarianism) vision and agenda. The only bracha I would give to him is that he or some successor of his should become PM before it’s too late. If that is not to happen, I would rather he failed miserably in his first election so he doesn’t destroy the political rennaissance of the NRP
Bravo!