Netanyahu Offers Feiglin a Deal as He [Bibi] Tries to Keep His Ideology Vague

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Netanyahu Offers Feiglin a Deal

Excerpts:

“Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu ended his efforts to expel right-wing activist Moshe Feiglin from the Likud on Thursday, just two days after he announced a quest to purge the Likud of ‘negative elements.'”

“Netanyahu offered Feiglin a deal whereby he would agree to not expel him from the party in return for Feiglin dropping his race for a slot on the Likud’s Knesset list, Likud sources said.”

“Feiglin was expected to accept the offer because he had very little chance of getting elected and because the only position he wanted was that of Likud leader. Feiglin had intended to drop his candidacy for the Knesset on Tuesday, but he had changed his mind after Netanyahu started his campaign against him.”

“Central committee members will vote four days earlier, on January 5, on a proposal to ban “anyone who has been convicted and sentenced to at least three months in jail” from running for any position in the Likud.”

“To exclude Feiglin [Apparently to exclude Feiglin from the above provision], Netanyahu added a clause saying that the proposal exempts people who the Likud’s central elections committee decided did not commit a crime involving moral turpitude. The committee ruled three years ago that there was no moral turpitude in Feiglin’s 1997 conviction for seditious acts, publications and unlawful assembly during his protest of the Oslo Accords.”

Weekly Commentary: Bibi’s Choice – Defining the Likud

Excerpts;

“Newly elected Likud Chairman MK Binyamin Netanyahu’s desire to remove
criminal elements from the Likud Party is laudable, but it is hardly the way to address … Moshe Feiglin’s presence in the party may represent.”

“Surely the legal minds entrusted with putting Netanyahu’s desire to clean up the Likud are smart enough … to bar those with a truly criminal record from representing the Likud without also barring someone who tried to stop Oslo via nonviolent protest activities.”

“Yes, Feiglin blocked roads in protest. And while I personally oppose such activities it would be the height of hypocrisy to claim that this activity is grounds to bar someone from running for the Knesset when at the very same time the Labor Party’s chairman and candidate for prime minister was not only responsible for illegally blocking roads but also for illegally closing down Israel’s ports, destroying property and illegally seizing control of factory facilities as the leader of the Histadrut labor union.”

“Netanyahu doesn’t want to get rid of Feiglin because of his ‘criminal’ record; he wants him out of the Likud because the competing parties are using Feiglin’s presence in the Party to label Likud as ‘radical right’.”

“Netanyahu can come up with a Likud ‘declaration of principles’ … ‘Territorial concessions within the framework of an agreement reached with the Palestinians must be both preceded by and anchored in Palestinian security compliance.'”

“That’s a principle that Feiglin won’t sign off on because it implies
acceptance of the possibility of territorial concessions.”

“It is a principle that sends a clear message to Israeli voters as to just where Likud is positioned: willing to entertain the possibility of territorial concessions but rejecting unilateral retreats.”

Commentary:

This move may also put Manhigut Yehudit in tight spot regarding continued participation in the Likud party since what drew Moshe and MY into Likud was Likud’s founding principles which seem based both in Jewish principles and values as regarding Jewish Self-Respect and the eternal Jewish legacy from G’d: the Land of Israel, and in Begin’s Herut philosophies, as well as it’s pre-eminence as the almost perennial ruling party in Israel. MB

Column One: The Likud’s Strategy

Excerpts;

“This past week Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Kadima electoral list suffered two major setbacks. Taken together, the blows present the Likud with its first realistic chance to make a significant dent in public support for Kadima and to move much of that support to the Likud.”

“The first blow came with MK Binyamin Netanyahu’s election as Likud leader on Monday. Netanyahu’s victory cleared the way for the Likud to finally enter the general elections race. Before his election, Kadima had the political field to itself. If the Likud is able to unify behind Netanyahu, and if Netanyahu runs a strong and competent campaign, we are in for an extremely competitive electoral season.”

“The second hit was, of course, the mild stroke that Sharon suffered, which landed him in the hospital on Sunday evening. Sharon’s health problems, which his stroke and subsequent hospitalization brought dramatically to the public’s attention, dealt a serious blow to Kadima because now the issue of Sharon’s medical condition will likely become a central issue in the campaign.”

“If the Likud builds its political campaign on a two-pronged strategy of demonstrating the emptiness and failure of Sharon’s strategic moves and underscoring Sharon’s health problems – while positioning itself just to the right of the center of Israel’s political spectrum – the Likud will succeed in hitting Sharon at his weak points while building on its own strengths.”

But not a word about Netanyahu shooting himself in the foot regarding
his attempts to oust Moshe Feiglin and Jewish Leadership. MB