I check the headlines every so often for Israeli news, just in case a war breaks out or people have been hurt or killed God forbid and I should know about it. So I opened up NRG this morning and I saw this headline. I didn’t read the article and don’t plan on it:
הזחילה לממשלה: ליברמן הפך לבובה של נתניהו
במבחן הממשי הראשון ליברמן נשבר. ולא סתם נשבר, אלא השתטח עד עפר בפומבי כדי שנתניהו יקרא לו. בסופו של דבר, כולם משקרים את כולם, בכלל זה ראש הממשלה את הציבור, דבר שמעלה תהיות על משמעות הפתק בקלפי
I don’t know about or follow the political mess because the quality of my life diminishes when I try to pay attention to it, but the subtext is very encouraging.
“The crawl to Netanyahu: Liberman has become Netanyahu’s puppet.”
“Liberman has broken on his first real test. And he didn’t just break – he prostrated himself in the dirt in public so Netanyahu would call on him. At the end of the day, everybody’s lying to everyone else, including the Prime Minister to the public, which brings into question the significance of placing a ballot in the ballot box.”
The guy who wrote this is Ariel Kahane. I don’t know who he is but he’s probably your average right winger type.
Netanyahu is going to speak to a congress of baboons today. Or maybe tomorrow. Or maybe yesterday. I don’t even know. But one thing that strikes me as profoundly sad about this whole meaningless hype surrounding a total nonevent of nothingness is how excited everyone is about it, as if Netanyahu blathering to a bunch of panderers is going to change Jewish history as we know it.
The Jewish people have become so dependent and weak that we get excited about Netanyahu flexing his speaking skills? Talk talk talk. And everyone’s inspired by even the prospect of him bloviating with his signature faux emotional pauses. To a group of people who have collectively driven a people into $18 trillion of debt and counting.
It’s just sad. Here’s a status I shared on Facebook about this BS.
I’m so excited about Netanyahu speaking to Congress. It will change everything. Netanyahu will finally do the one thing he’s never, ever done before: Give a speech. Politician to fellow politicians. Historic.
His speech will be so moving that, immediately after the final rapturous pandering applause rally, there will be no more Iranian nuclear program, all Jews expelled by Netanyahu from Gush Katif will be returned, the Wye Accords will be reversed, Hevron will be back in Jewish hands, and Jews will be allowed to pray on Har Habayit.
If there’s one thing Netanyahu is good at, it’s destroying homes. He did it in Wye, he did it in Hevron, he did it in the Disengagement, and he’s doing it now.
Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the demolition of the homes of the two terrorists who carried out Tuesday’s attack in Har Nof, the most significant operational step taken in the immediate aftermath of the murders.
Politicians are great at harnessing the emotions of an angry populace. We’re all pissed that murderers killed innocents today. But when we’re all upset, we stop thinking about the dangers of government power. What law allows Netanyahu to simply destroy a house just because a murderer, now dead, used to live there?
And what the hell is that going to solve? If the parents are already glad their sick murderer kids were killed in the act, then what do they care if their house is going to be destroyed as well? You know what’s going to happen now? Here’s what’s going to happen now.
Israel is going to tax you for buying food, transfer that money to the Palestinian Authority, who will then proceed to pay the families of these murderers cash to rebuild their homes. They will also name a road after them.
If Netanyahu weren’t such a pathetic coward, he would think of something more Jewish to do instead of destroy more capital in Israel. He could, for example, move the family out of their home and put it up for auction to a Jew. Though this would not be a libertarian solution, it would be better than destroying a home and much more of a deterrent to these bastards.
The libertarian solution is privatize all infrastructure surrounding the home, including roads and all public buildings, sell them to Jews, and the Jewish owners could then forbid this family of murderers from using the road.
Last week there was a big meeting of the Likud Central Committee in Tel Aviv. They were there to set the primary day agreed upon by Danny Danon and Benjamin Netanyahu to be January 6. Danon is the Central Committee Chairman.
Moshe Feiglin, playing the game, got up at the meeting of 3,000 people and submitted a motion to limit the primaries to stand for 6 months assuming no new general elections are called within that time frame. Primaries would then happen again before the next general elections. That would prevent Netanyahu from simply grabbing the crown now and using it as a blank check for the next 2-3 years to do whatever he wants.
The media was shocked and awed, but Feiglin’s motion actually passed by a wide majority. However, Danon basically ignored the vote, probably because he has a backroom deal with Bibi to team up against Feiglin in exchange for some petty crony position or other. Below is a video, in Hebrew, of Feiglin’s motion passing and Danon making up an excuse why it didn’t really pass. In his words, “People voted for both sides,” so the vote was “void”.
Besides that mess, Feiglin came off a total superstar during the meeting. I was not there as I am not a central committee member, but from what I hear he totally owned the place. Here’s a piece from Ynet about what went down that night and how Feiglin had to calm his supporters down not to jeer Netanyahu when he came up to speak. (The part about Rav Kahane is just stupid fluff having nothing to do with anything, but the media always has to bring up Kahane when Feiglin wins a battle in Likud.)
Here’s the video. Even if you don’t understand Hebrew, it is clear who’s the rock star here and who’s the zhlub.
So, a few days ago some crony lawyer name Something HaLevi wrote a letter to some other crony that Feiglin’s motion is illegal for some technical reason or other. (If you want to know the garbagey details, he wrote that it says in the Likud Constitution that the Chairman will be Likud’s candidate for prime minister, and that means that once he’s chosen, he’s chosen for the next elections no matter how far out they are. This is, of course, bullshit, but blah blah blah, not important, it’s all political theater anyway.)
So now, Feiglin has come out with his response, pretty much slamming Netanyahu and Danon, in public, for being crony schmucks, which they are, and saying that his motion did pass, and to ignore it is illegal.
He basically took a big shot across their bow without taking any legal action (yet), and they are both – Danon and Netanyahu – running against him for Chairmanship of the party.
Knesset Member Danny Danon, Likud Central Committee Chairman
The Likud
Concerning: The vote on the motion to limit the validity of the Primaries
After checking the pictures that were published from the Central Committee meeting last Sunday in the matter of my motion, it is quite obvious that my motion got a clear majority. Central Committee Chairman MK Danon’s claim, which he made after losing the open ballot vote twice, that certain Central Committee members were voting twice, has no supporting evidence, and it harms and mocks the Committee members.
The scandalous behavior of Chairman Danon does not end here.
The elections committee decided on November 6 that, in keeping with the recommendation of the Attorney General Avi HaLevi Esq., the vote for moving up the primaries and all the related motions are so important that they should be done by secret ballot today between 10am and 10pm. How and why did this decision evaporate? Why is the vote not now taking place?
It seems, unfortunately, that nothing at all as changed. Decisions are made behind closed doors between the Chairman and his representatives and the Central Committee Chairman. The committee members are simply there to be part of a play. When not all goes according to plan and the committee members do not play the part planned out for them and actually state their preference, you do not respect their decision while using the same dirty tactics we knew in the past.
The opinion that you solicited from Avi HaLevi Esq. where he claims that no vote should take place on my motion, is not worth responding to. If we keep going down that road, we can nullify every Likud Party institution and let HaLevy run the whole show. It’s obvious how much you yourselves disrespect HaLevy’s opinion because you are not holding a secret ballot vote on the Prime Minister’s request move up the primaries, as HaLevy proved must be done, and he even made sure to cite it as a decision of the elections committee.
I hereby declare, clearly and publicly, that my motion to limit the validity of the upcoming primaries to 6 months was accepted by the Central Committee.
I will also add that if we are indeed on the eve of elections as the Prime Minister claims, this unacceptable behavior I previously mentioned, brings up justified anger. The party will be dragged into the courts, instead of just having transparent procedures. This behavior has political consequences that we all will pay for. I call on both of you, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Central Committee Chairman Danny Danon, respect the decision of the Central Committee and its members.
Sincerely,
Moshe Feiglin
Does that mean Feiglin is going to court? I don’t know. He is certainly threatening it. I spoke to him on Friday and he was not sure if it is worth it to do so even though he thinks he can win. We’re winning anyway.
I’m not good at making political decisions, so I have no idea one way or the other if Feiglin should fight here over this issue. But I trust that whatever he decides, God will help us come out on top.
Both Danon and Netanyahu are going down in the end. They are nothing but petty politicians. Moshe Feiglin is the only man running.
No joke. Hey Bibi! Why don’t you buy your own freaking ice cream?!
Oh, that’s right. You don’t earn any money. You only subsist off of my tax receipts. So then what’s the difference between Netanyahu, or any other government leach, asking for ice cream from a budget, or paying for it from his tax funded salary?
If you want to make it impossible for Bibi to do anything stupid like dismantling outposts and robbing Jews of their land, then the best way to stop him is to vote Likud. The bigger it is, the less he can control it.
If you vote Bennett, Likud will be smaller, he will have less internal Likud opposition, and Bibi will use Bennett like a spare tire. Bennett will join the coalition when Bibi needs him, and when Bibi wants to do something stupid like “peace negotiations” or “gestures to the Palestinians”, he’ll kick out Bennett and bring in Yesh Lapid or Karl “Yechimovich” Marx and do it anyway.
The bigger Likud is, the more people in the coalition that cannot be kicked out at Bibi’s convenience. When Bibi wants to do something stupid, I’d rather he have 40 Likud MK’s to fight with that he can’t kick out rather than 30.
Bibi wants the smallest Likud possible while still maintaining his PM seat. That’s why he kicked down Moshe Feiglin last time, and that’s why he launched a suicidal inane distasteful campaign against Bayit Yehudi this time. To get the right wingers disgusted with him so they’ll vote for an outside party that he can control with ease.
So help us stop Bibi. Vote Likud. Make it so huge it’s unmanageable. Give Bibi hell.
And if you really hate Likud and can’t bring yourself to do it, which is understandable, vote Aleh Yarok.
In two weeks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be defending his title as Likud Party Chairman against challenger Moshe Feiglin. Polls show Netanyahu winning, but that may not be enough for Israel’s Prime Minister. A poll conducted by Israeli polling company Ma’agar Mochot has Mr. Feiglin polling at about 26% support among Likud members not affiliated with Feiglin’s Jewish Leadership faction. With Feiglin’s Jewish Leadership faction numbering about 9% of the overall Likud membership, this brings his total support to about 35% in the party, Netanyahu at 51%, and 14% undecided or unsure.
The question asked in the poll leading to these statistics was worded as follows. The poll surveyed Likud members who voted in the last two Likud primaries: Do you agree or disagree with the point that it is important to vote for Moshe Feiglin in the upcoming primaries, even though it is clear that Benjamin Netanyahu will win, just so that the right wing inside Likud will gain strength?
26% either “agree” or “definitely agree” with that statement, while 14% are unsure or undecided.
According to the grassroots Likud website likudnik.co.il, Feiglin even has a chance of beating Netanyahu within the Likud Druze sector, which is known to be very right wing in its political leanings. Another grassroots site, likudshely.co.il, is reporting a widespread phenomenon of Netanyahu supporters refusing to turn out for him in protest, or even pledging to vote Feiglin in an act of defiance over Netanyahu’s refusal to legalize outposts in Judea and Samaria. Netanyahu’s refusal to support a bill requiring nominees to Israel’s Supreme Court to undergo confirmation hearings by the Knesset has also angered the party base, as have his attempts to secure former Labor Party leader Ehud Barak a slot on the upcoming Likud Knesset roster.
If Feiglin’s faction comes out on January 31st with a strong turnout in addition to these numbers, he has a fair chance of even reaching the 40% threshold and seriously embarrassing Netanyahu. Whether Netanyahu can maintain his hegemony in the party if Feiglin wins such a large percentage of the Likud electorate remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the Feiglin camp is organizing a day of donations for his campaign on January 18th.
The Jewish Libertarian 
