Israeli Politics

Naftali Bennett and the Mafdal’s last hurrah

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Those of us who really believe Moshe Feiglin can and will lead Israel and the Jewish Nation to liberty by becoming Prime Minister have this refrain. We always say that we’re not trying to lead the Dati Leumi, or the Religious Zionist sector. We are not a sector, we do not believe in sectors, and we try to speak to the Jewish nation qua nation and leave sectors aside. We want to lead everyone and free everyone. Not lead a sector and try to cut off a hunk of publicly funded steak and bring it home to a ravenous constituency starved for tax-funded whatevers.

But even those of us with our eye on the ball sometimes lose focus for a second and get sucked back into the “sector” that we supposedly “came from,” which in most cases is the Religious Zionist sector, the srugim, or whatever you want to call them.

We see in the polls that Naftali Bennett has totally revived the old Mafdal. He’s a new exciting guy, served in Tzahal as commander of a bunch of important stuff and did heroic things and whatnot just like Ehud Barak of the new up-and-coming then out-and-going Atzmaut (literally, “Forget Labor”) Party. He was a highly successful career man and made a skrillion dollars just like Yair Lapid of the new up-and-coming and soon to be out-and-going Yesh Lapid (literally “There is Lapid”) Party. Or was it two skrillion? I don’t remember exactly. And he can talk oh…soooo…smoothly…in perfect American English…with a perfect American accent…that’s so seductive…just like…

Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mafdal, or Bayit Yehudi, or whatever you want to call it, might get a bunch of seats. Maybe 10. Maybe 15. Maybe 20. It doesn’t make the least bit of difference. Why? Because Naftali Bennett is nothing but a new Netanyahu with a kippah on. He has no conviction about anything but he can talk as if he almost does. For example, he can say contradictory things like, “A soldier should never have to choose between expelling a human being from his home and disobeying orders,” and then end it with, “A soldier should never disobey orders under any circumstances,” and state both mutually contradictory statements together with the same conviction, thereby effectively saying absolutely nothing, but making people think he has.

And then, as if he didn’t contradict himself at all, he’ll go on in the very next sentence and challenge his twin, Benjamin Netanyahu, to state publicly if he plans on expelling people from their homes again or not, as if trying to fork another politician will take the attention away from the fact that he’s trying to have his cake and eat it too as well. Well, Bennett, my little Bibi with a Kippah, if he does, what will you do? All you’ve told us is you hope it won’t happen. But what will you do? Support private property or support immoral orders?

Bennett’s long term plan is genius. Get this: He wants to wait for the Arabs to “calm down”. Of course this isn’t what Israel has already been doing since Oslo. Inspiring. That’s it! They have to “calm down”! Why didn’t we think of this before! When I think of Jewish History and our job on this planet and the reason we came back to Israel after millenia of exile, I think of Arabs “calming down,” and when I picture calm Arabs, I get this kind of religious messianic zeal. Thanks Bennett. You have a very nice kippah and a cool buzz cut.

And his slogan: “Something new is beginning.” Yes, something new indeed. Bibi now has a kippah. That’s new. And the new Bibi  says right wing sounding rhetoric without committing to any actual positions and wants to wait things out until the Arabs “calm down”. New Indeed.

Now, back to why it makes absolutely no difference how many seats the Mafdal gets. It doesn’t matter because the only interesting thing that is going to come out of this Knesset will be the Knesset speeches and Knesset actions of Moshe Feiglin from within the Likud slate. He’s going to be in the Knesset. Nothing can stop that. Likud isn’t going down to 20 seats under any circumstances. From that podium, from that pulpit, Feiglin will speak about liberty and Jewish values and Jewish leadership. And the Jewish Nation will listen. And he’ll say actual things that don’t contradict themselves. And when Netanyahu tries to do something stupid, he will fight tooth and nail and probably get sanctioned in some way or another, and he won’t be invited into Bibi’s little circle, and if he is named as a Minister he may get fired, and if he doesn’t get fired and Bibi tries to expel someone from their home, he’ll resign, and it’ll be great.

Moshe Feiglin won’t have to pull stupid political tricks like asking the “Prime Minister” from a press conference if he intends to expel Jews from their homes or not. He will be able to fight it and embarrass Bibi from within the Likud itself if he does. Bennett will be able to do absolutely nothing but yell. He won’t pull out of the government because he’ll fear someone from the Left will take his place. So in the end he’ll do nothing and say things like “I wish soldiers wouldn’t have to choose between expelling Jews and following orders boo hoo.”

Meanwhile, while Bennett pouts and stays in the coalition posing no threat to Bibi whatsoever, Feiglin will be fighting from the inside and setting the stage for his next run at the Likud leadership.

So in the end, whether Bennett has 10 or 20 seats makes no difference. He’ll stay in the government just like every other Mafdal incarnate has over the history of the sector. Sometimes we Feiglinites forget that we are not in a sector and we are not trying to get sectoral votes for our party. We are not after “Dati Leumi” votes. We don’t want the Dati Leumi all suddenly joining Likud and filling out membership forms. We don’t want the Likud to be a sector. We don’t want to turn the Likud into the Mafdal. We want to lead the nation. That means we are after the votes of people who believe in the nation, not their sector.

Someone who feels they are part of the Dati Leumi sector more than they are part of the Jewish Nation as a whole should not vote Likud. Someone who feels that they are part of the nation should vote Likud, regardless of what kippah he (or she) wears or if he even wears one at all.

When all is said and done, the Nation will hear Feiglin speak softly, like he did yesterday, that he supports anyone who refuses orders on moral grounds, left or right, as he always has. Bennett will be screaming at a wall as he continually says nothing.

Bennett will speak loudly. Feiglin will speak softly as he always does, but this time he will carry the big stick. Let the votes fall where they may, and let the Jewish People separate the leaders from the politicians. Once they do, it will be clear. This is Mafdal’s last hurrah.

Gidon Sa’ar and the den of education slaves

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I went to a Likud event last night hosted by the head of the local Likud branch in Karnei Shomron in his home. He wanted me to show up so there would be bodies at the event, and I happen to have one of those. I’m technically on some board of something or other involving the local Likud branch, which means me and the Likud leadership structure are like Dark Helmet and Lonestar. Father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommates, which makes us absolutely nothing, but that’s more than most people.

I was dreading this event because the guest of honor was Gidon Sa’ar, that random guy who happened to get a few hundred votes more than the next random guy who in consequence was given the right by the Prime Minister to run the entire education system funded by coercive force and run as efficiently as a Hummer with a lead chassis stuck in first gear with the handbrake engaged and leaking fuel.

He comes in, tells us all about his wonderful accomplishments, and I’m surrounded by every head of the various bits and pieces of the totalitarian education regime in my region. After Sa’ar is done aweing us with his amazing display of managerial educational prowess, then the slave fest begins.

Everyone starts begging Sa’ar for tax money. Going on and on about how their school is missing a roof or is leaking poison gas or both and it’s hard for the children to learn the required state curriculum because they keep having to dodge bird droppings from the sky and it’s hard to concentrate while wearing a gas mask. So please oh Master Sa’ar can we please have 5 shekels of tax money so we can spread a sheet over the school and plug up the poison gas leak with a wad of chewing gum? We can’t afford the gum without your help.

I don’t know exactly what everyone was begging for in specific, but it may as well have been that. I couldn’t possibly pay attention because I was jumping out of my skin at the time. All words ran together and I stopped trying to decode it. At a certain concentration of slavery, I just stop processing.

I wanted to pick up these people by their collars and scream, “Why do you all have to beg like slaves towards this man to fund your obviously crappy schools? Get rid of the entire ministry of education, free yourselves, run your schools like businesses, and the best ones will survive and the worst ones will die! Just like any other industry!”

Every time there is a regime change the curriculum changes. If the left wins, everyone has to learn about the Nakba. If the right wins, everyone has to go to Hevron and the Ma’arat HaMachpelah. Why can’t there just be plain and simple freedom? Schools should do what they want to do, respond to supply and demand, teach what they want to teach and parents will send where they want to send, or not, no one will pay any taxes to fund any education system and all the money will go back to the people. Those who want to learn about the Nakba will go to that kind of school. Those that want to learn about the Cave and Hevron will go to that kind of school.

There would be no argument about whether to “recognize” Ariel “University Center” or not because there’d be no public money involved. No Hilonim would complain that the Haredim are not learning basic State requirements, because there wouldn’t be any. No Haredim would complain that the State is making them do whatever because it wouldn’t. Everyone could live in peace and harmony, learning and teaching whatever they wanted to learn and teach. Instead of the bad schools getting more money, they’d get less. Instead of the good schools getting less money, they’d get more.

Kum-ba-freakin-yah.

I got a call yesterday from Gidon Sa’ar’s office asking if I intend to vote for him.

“Probably not,” I said. I just can’t bring myself to do it.

Forgive me for Disengaging

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I have a confession to make. I supported the Disengagement. Not only did I support it, I supported it fully. I even called those advocating refusal of orders dangerous traitors, Zecharyah ben Avkilas types who would send away Emperor Nero’s sacrifice because of a flaw rather than sacrifice it and save Jerusalem.

It is critical that you understand exactly why I felt this way.

There are two distinct goals for the Jewish People at this point in history. One goal is to build a giant defensive wall and use it to protect the Jewish People as much as possible against the next wave of destruction, and in the meantime just wait for the Jewish People to be redeemed somehow. This is a negative goal, and as such, essentially has no direction. It’s just a beautifully paved road to nowhere. The other goal, which is mutually exclusive, is to actually redeem the Jewish People. This is the only possible positive goal, the only one that leads somewhere real.

The theory of Disengagement is that you hunker down, gather the Jews, make sure they’re all on our side of the fence, build a giant fortress wall, and hide behind it for as long as possible. This is the quintessential defensive tactic that looks appealing to those who have no positive goals other than defending the Jewish People.

This is why I supported the disengagement. Because in an environment where there simply was no leader who had any positive goals, it seemed like the best option for defense. I didn’t see any leader who was even trying to move along the process of redemption. So I wanted to separate populations, Jews and Arabs, put them on one side, put us on the other, build a giant wall – literally – and wait behind it for Moshiach. The Disengagement was one step towards that for me.

Oh how I cried when I realized what I had done. I cried not when the Disengagement happened. That was very painful – I remember watching it as it happened, but the tears of the people being torn from their homes could not inspire my own to flow. I cried, rather, when I saw that I had completely missed something essential. One night in late 2008 I read an article in the Jerusalem Post that some guy named Feiglin may get a Knesset seat on the Likud list and that Netanyahu was actually scared of this. I wondered what he could actually be scared of.

I got curious, and I went to Feiglin’s website. He had joined Likud because he actually wanted to lead the entire nation and declare victory on top of the Temple Mount. When I heard that, my soul, hardened by years of building defensive walls and buying time, began to melt. Feiglin wasn’t speaking to any Jewish sector at all, but to the entire Jewish nation. Something inside me cracked and I shed a tear. I understood. He wants to finish the process of Geulah. He has an actual positive goal.

Then the tears really came. I realized that what led me to support the bitter evil of the Disengagement was simply my desire to go on defense and just wait it out instead of move it forward. I cried because I understood I didn’t have to think that way anymore, ever again. I could move forward. That’s the Jewish concept of avoiding from evil and doing good. In order to avoid evil, you must do good, otherwise you get caught up in evil unwittingly, like I did. And those getting caught in the evil right now are all those stuck in the sectoral mentality.

Trying to unite the Religious Zionists is nothing but an insidious form of Disengagement. Less brutal, for sure, but insidious and wrong. Instead of disengaging from LAND and separating ARABS and Jews, those who even RECOGNIZE sectors are disengaging from the Jewish PEOPLE and separating JEWS and Jews.

You want to know why Religious Zionist parties keep shrinking? Because they’re boring. Because they lack any sort of positive goal. Because voters are tired of playing defense.

This is NOT a question of how we unite the Religious Zionists to build the next wall of defense. This is a question of what you think God really wants from the Jewish people. Does God want sector A to outvote sector B and then Moshiach comes? God wants us to simply buy enough time until His Divine egg timer goes off in the sky and it’s time for Moshiach to just show up by default? Is this just a silly game of chicken? Or does God want the Jews, all of us, to realize, together, as a nation, what the heck we’re doing here in Israel and why?

I believe God wants the second option. In order for us to realize what we’re doing here, we need a leader who speaks to every single Jew. If you’re in a sector, then talk and talk as much as you want about Jewish identity and any Jew out of your sector will simply ignore you, because you’ve disengaged yourself from them.

Manhigut Yehudit is not about defense, and it is not even about saving the settlements. Every Likud primary is about speaking to this stiff-necked people of ours, the Jewish People, who are confused and directionless, and telling them that we need to finish the process of Redemption and lead this world. No matter what the results are; whether Moshe Feiglin wins a victory or comes close or loses, one thing is absolutely certain. Every time he runs, Feiglin speaks, and Am Yisrael listens. Left and right, Dati Hiloni Haredi. EVERYONE hears him.

Would anyone care if Naftali Bennett came out supporting medical marijuana? No, because Bennett is disengaged from Am Yisrael. Nobody cares what he says. Just a fact. But when Moshe Feiglin supports medical marijuana, all of a sudden every station has to interview him immediately. That’s the nation listening.

Those in the “Jewish Home” – for the love of God, and I don’t use that phrase lightly, stop your disengagement from the Jewish People. Talk to them. All of them. You can help us talk to them. Join Likud and TALK to them. You may not win a seat, but for God’s sake they’ll hear you.

Moshe Feiglin will win because he’s the only one with a goal. Everything else is meaningless chatter about how best to do nothing. The path is not glorious. It is not easy. It is full of ridicule and naysayers. It is full of dirty political tricks that will drive you mad. But if you want to bring Jewish history to its climax, we need everyone in on it. You can all help.

Moshe Feiglin will keep speaking. You can either make his voice that much louder and be a part of Jewish history, or you can, yet again, go in Galut defensive mode, disengage from the rest of the Jews, and fight the next prime minister from your defensive wall of Knesset seats. And then watch it be torn down to dust.

Ari Abramowitz & Jeremy Gimpel betraying their belief in Feiglin for a knesset seat

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I don’t normally use the word “betray” because it’s very strongly negative. It sounds bad. But this is what it seems that Abramowitz and Gimpel are doing by running in the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) list for Knesset. See their event here. I wouldn’t come out with such strong words if the two were not Feiglin supporters to begin with. I wouldn’t say that anyone currently in Bayit Yehudi is “betraying” anyone, because they never believed in Jewish Leadership in the first place. They believe in complaining while earning big tax money salaries.

I don’t know if Ari and Jeremy were Likud members in the past, but I’ve seen Ari at Feiglin events and I’ve heard of a loose connection between him and Manhigut Yehudit. But if they were, they are no longer. All they need, says the event, are 1,000 signatures of people to join the Bayit Hehudi party to secure their names on the list.

These 1,000 people they are looking for will get them something like the 4th or 5th slot on the list, maximum. They are also 1,000 people who will not be able to vote for Jewish Leadership in the Likud party, the party that actually rules the country. 1,000 more Likud members would be an enormous push in the direction of real Jewish Leadership for Israel. Ari and Jeremy could make that happen, but they have decided that getting a realistic slot on the Likud list is next to impossible for them, so they can more easily get that tax money Knesset Member salary (since that’s all it would be, as Bayit Yehudi is a totally irrelevant party) by joining an irrelevant party.

How irrelevant? Well, the Ulpana was just evacuated, and the “Jewish Home” party did nothing about it. Its leader is still in the government. So would Ari and Jeremy had they been on the list this time. So much for saving Zionism.

Ari, Jeremy – stop wasting your influence on your own political ambitions. Use it to bring those thousand people you need in to Likud instead of into your own political futures. You believe in Manhigut Yehudit, and you believe in Moshe Feiglin. So do the right thing and ditch the sector mentality.

3 for 1 book sales are now illegal in Israel: Yay Government!

rafifarber Economics, Israeli Politics, The Jewish Libertarian Blog

Stuff like this would never have bothered me a few years ago, not that I ever buy new books. I would have just glanced at the title, shrugged, and moved on with my life. But now these stories hit a real nerve.

The subtitle:

“3-for-1 deals at book stores will become a thing of the past in move designed to protect author’s income.”

So the government is going to decide for us what a good price for books is. They already do this with gasoline and interest rates. This piece of legislative thuggery was drawn up by Likud MK Limor Livnat, who voted for the Disengagement by the way, and is the “Culture and Sport” Minister because, well, the government needs to be in charge of that aspect of our lives as well. God forbid culture and sport be managed by the people. Likud is also, technically, the “free market laissez faire right wing” party.

The reason it is being passed is this:

The bill follows the entreaties of leading authors and publishers saying that the competition between the major bookstore chains – Tzomet Sfarim and Steimatzky – undercuts author royalties and threatens the viability of publishing houses. According to a statement put out by the Prime Minister’s Office, “the law is designed to protect the author’s income.”

So the free market is competing to lower prices for consumers like you and me, and the big guns are going to the government to make competition illegal.

According to the bill, stores will not be allowed to discount the price of a book for 18 months following its publication. Therefore, the logic goes, people will be forced to buy the book at a higher price, thereby “protecting the author’s income”.

Well, this is genius. That should work well.

But there’s another possibility, with a likelihood of something along the lines of absolutely certain: Sales of new books will plummet at Tzomet Sfarim and Steimatzky when consumers can no longer find good deals on them. Authors’ royalties will fall through the floor. Tzomet Sfarim and Steimatzky’s sales will plunge in general,  chains will go out of business, unemployment will go up, and people will cry to the government to bail out the bookstores, or better yet, pass a national “support Israeli literature tax” to give the industry a boost so authors don’t starve because nobody is buying their books. Sales of 18-month old books will skyrocket, but at an even lower price than new books were selling for at 3 for 1 deals because the chains will be trying to get rid of them in liquidation sales to make room for the new books that they can’t sell at a discount.

What will happen then is that the same thugs will complain to the government that the liquidation sales are killing author’s royalties, so those will be illegal too, and then the stores will just have to either burn them, or simply not take in new books, which will hurt author’s royalties as the books won’t even be available at Steimatzky anymore.

Livnat’s legislative bullying goes farther still:

The bill also states that for the first 18 months authors will receive a minimum 8% royalty for the first 6,000 books sold, and royalties of at least 10% for all books sold after that number. For the next seven years, publishers will be obligated to pay authors at least 16% royalties on profits from their books.

So the government also feels that it should force retailers to pay a certain amount to the authors, because God only knows what awful things could happen if they were left alone to decide the rates between themselves privately by contract. Such a thing cannot be done.

Netanyahu, Mr. Free Market Privatization, had this gem to quip:

“As the People of the Book, we are committed to maintaining the income of the authors who create our cultural treasures. The law creates the right balance between the aspiration that books not be a luxury item and that everyone be able to enjoy the experience of reading, and the need to protect authors and their works.”

Protect those authors Bibi! And when sales drop and they complain some more, I expect a subsidy or a tax or whatever it is that you’ll do to protect the industry from the consequence of your government interference with yet more government interference, thereby making it even worse. Maybe cut Barak off from first class flights to France, or maybe cut every MK’s salary 50%? How about getting rid of the entire Office of Culture and Sport and firing Livnat?

This isn’t about protecting authors. It’s about power and flexing muscle. That’s what it’s always about. Always.

Shas and Israel Beiteinu will vote to destroy the Ulpana

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Looks like Eli Yishai, my favorite coward and Hilul Hashem, will be voting for the Jewish homes in the Ulpana neighborhood to be destroyed. Looks like his partner, Housing Minister Ariel Attias, will also be voting to destroy the homes, because they both earn 41,000 shekels a month as government ministers and they like money and don’t want to get fired, and would rather have innocent families who don’t earn as much lose their homes and become homeless. It’s only fair.

Housing Minister Ariel Attias made clear in an interview with Army Radio that his party (Shas) will go along with the Prime Minister’s directive to vote against the Normalization Law. “We will not vote against the position of the coalition (read the position of Netanyahu), and we will not support the Normalization Law, certainly the Ministers will not,” he said. “This is not something to stir up a coalition crisis over.

Yeah, why endanger the coalition that pays you 41,000 shekels a month of my tax money and welfare to your voters when it’s just a few people’s houses at stake who don’t even vote for your party? It’s not like you’re the minister of housing or anything (as if there should even be a minister of housing in the first place, which there should not be).

I’m not angry. I didn’t expect anything more from anybody in Shas, or Israel Beiteinu for that matter, because they are both one-man parties and the Knesset Members don’t answer to any of their constituents, so no matter what they do, they’ll be voted back in if Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef or Avigdor Lieberman wants them back in the list next round.

There are no leaders in Shas or Israel Beiteinu, so they cannot go against Netanyahu. They are just money vacuums. They don’t care about what is right, only about what is profitable for themselves – including Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef.

We’ll see what happens in the Likud though, which does answer to the party members. Those who vote against the Normalization Law will have a very hard time keeping their jobs.

You cannot stand up to any pressure if you are not a leader. The only leader that exists is Netanyahu, and no one can stand up to him except Moshe Feiglin, who is the only one actually trying to replace him.