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Commentary;
Caroline Glick is right in bemoaning Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s pre-occupation with in the media for bringing Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit down rather than distinguishing the differences between a Likud slate top-heavy with principled, common sense candidates for Knesset and the too tired to fight, too tired to win destructo “delusional and defeatist Kadima and Labor parties.”
However, the amount of ink spilled in Glick’s attempt to portray Moshe Feiglin and Manhigut Yehudit as “minor players” actually betrays the extent of Feiglin’s true strength in the party and his arrival in “the Big Leagues.” He received some 12,000 votes out of 50,000, the candidates he endorsed won 7 of the top 12 slots and 10 of the first 20 slots and 7 out of the 2nd 20 slots on the Likud list and his co-founder of Manhigut Yehudit Shmuel Sackett didn’t make a regional candidate slot despite receiving 10,000 votes in his region.
But beyond these facts, Feiglin represents a return to principles by Jews, Israelis in understanding why they are here on Jewish land and what their role is in a Jewish sovereignty. Rather than Glick’s characterization of Feiglin sharing common ground with the left, he in fact represents the deep inseperable spiritual/religious link and connection between a Jew and his Divine legacy; the land of Israel — the ultimate reality. It is a role and connection that Caroline Glick, for all of her journalistic credits and right-wing positions, has truly yet to come to personal grips with. MB
Netanyahu’s Grand Coalition, by Caroline Glick (Jerusalem Post)
Excerpts;
Obama’s team, like its supporters in the international foreign policy establishment, is dismayed by the Israeli opinion polls that show that Likud, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, is favored to win February 10’s general elections by a wide margin.
In anticipation of Likud’s expected electoral victory, they have been piling on against Netanyahu and the party. This was most recently evident at last week’s Middle East policy conclave in Washington organized by the pro-Obama and post-Zionist Saban Middle East Forum at the Brookings Institute. There, both secretary of state-designate Hillary Clinton’s surrogate, former president Bill Clinton, and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice castigated Netanyahu’s assertion that peace must be built from the bottom up through the liberalization of Palestinian society, rather than from the top down by giving land to terrorists.
Netanyahu foresees Palestinian liberalization coming through economic development in an “economic peace process.”
Both the former US president and Rice attacked his plan, claiming that it is antithetical to the sacrosanct “two-state solution.”
As far as they and their many colleagues are concerned, the only thing that remains to be discussed is when Israel will vacate Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. The fact that there is no significant Palestinian constituency willing to peacefully coexist with Israel is irrelevant.
In light of the incoming Obama administration’s palpable hostility toward Israel, and particularly toward Israel’s political realists, the results of the Likud primary this past Monday were especially significant. In selecting the party’s slate of candidates for Knesset, Likud members favored sober-minded politicians who use their common sense to guide them over those with records of support for the fraudulent “peace processes” so favored by the local media, Kadima, Labor and the international jet set.
One might have intuited that the striking contrast between the sober-minded Likud party and the delusional and defeatist Kadima and Labor parties that was brought so prominently to the fore by the Likud primary would have been the central message that Netanyahu chose to convey in the days that have followed Monday’s vote. But sadly, one would be wrong to think that.
Disturbingly, rather than drawing distinctions between his party and its rivals, Netanyahu has spent the days since the primary drawing distinctions between himself and a minor player in his own party. Both ahead of the primary and in the days since, Netanyahu has devoted the majority of his time to attacking his sharpest critic within the party – Moshe Feiglin, who heads the far-right Jewish Leadership Forum in Likud and won the not-particularly-senior 20th position on Likud’s Knesset slate. On Thursday, Netanyahu succeeded in pushing Feiglin down to the 36th spot.
Feiglin has more in common with the Left he abhors than with his party members. Like the Left, Feiglin bases his strategic and economic notions on a complete denial of reality. Whereas the Left ignores the Arabs, Feiglin ignores the West. Feiglin’s religious adherence to his views has made him few friends in Likud or elsewhere in Israeli politics. The threat he constitutes to Netanyahu is negligible.
Given Feiglin’s inherent weakness, Netanyahu’s post-primary focus on him is shocking. Netanyahu has argued that Feiglin will lose votes for Likud. But assuming that is true, the last thing Netanyahu should be doing is placing a spotlight on Feiglin. Rather, Netanyahu should be emphasizing his strongest suit: the clear distinction between Likud on the one hand and Kadima and Labor on the other hand.
In focusing the public’s attention on Feiglin, Netanyahu appears to be reacting to foreign pressures rather than domestic ones. One of Netanyahu’s most difficult challenges during his tenure as prime minister from 1996 to 1999 was handling his relations with the hostile Clinton administration. From the moment Netanyahu was elected until the moment he left office, the Clinton administration’s Israel policy was devoted entirely to bringing down his government. In close collusion with Netanyahu’s political opponents and the local media, for three years Clinton worked steadily to overthrow him. Clinton’s assault culminated in the 1999 elections when he sent his own campaign managers to Israel to lead the Labor Party’s campaign against Netanyahu and Likud.
No doubt, it is in the hopes of building better relations with the incoming Obama administration that Netanyahu now seeks to distance himself from Feiglin and advocates forming a broad governing coalition with his political foes in Kadima and Labor. Apparently, in his view only such a broad coalition will insulate him from a US presidential assault. In the interests of forming such a coalition, while highlighting his disputes with Feiglin, Netanyahu has sought to obfuscate his ideological differences with Kadima and Labor.
Although Netanyahu’s motivations are understandable, his mode of operation will bring him results exactly opposed to the ones he seeks. It is true that to withstand pressures and even an all-out assault by the Obama administration Netanyahu will need a broad coalition. But that coalition cannot be based on a simple will to power, as Olmert’s coalition and previous leftist coalitions have been. To survive a hostile While House, Netanyahu will require a broad coalition founded on support for his ideas and his party’s policies, not a broad coalition populated by political and ideological opponents dedicated to undermining his ideas and policies.
Rather than obfuscate the differences between Likud and Kadima/Labor, Netanyahu must highlight them. He must convince the Israeli electorate to vote for Likud on the basis of these distinctions. Likud must be perceived as the party of commonsense ideas and clear-minded policies that inspire, attract and convince the Israeli public to support it. And Netanyahu and Likud have those ideas and policies.
On a strategic level, Netanyahu and Likud have made clear that they stand for three main principles. First, they are committed to establishing defensible borders for Israel by securing Israeli sovereignty over all of greater Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley, the Samarian Hills and the Golan Heights.
Second, they recognize that the Palestinian society that elected a terror group to lead it is a society that is uninterested in peace with Israel. Consequently, any future negotiations must be preceded by a full reorganization and reform of Palestinian society.
Third, they reject the Kadima/Labor fantasy that foreign militaries and international forces can be expected to protect Israel in place of the IDF.
If Netanyahu runs on these policies, he will not merely win the elections. He will win a clear mandate to govern. And only if Netanyahu runs on these policies will he have a chance of blunting the pressure that will certainly be brought to bear by the Obama administration. For although it is clear that like Clinton, Obama will have no problem opposing the will of an Israeli government, he will be hard pressed to oppose the will of the Israeli people.
To read the entire column, click here.