The following is an excerpt from a recent Front Page interview with Moshe Feiglin. The interviewer is Dan Rabkin of FrontPageMagazine.com.
Rabkin: If the polls are to be believed and the Likud win the next general election, what role do you see yourself playing in that government?
Feiglin: In a nutshell, in Israeli elections you don’t vote for a person, you vote for a party. Based on what share of the vote your party gets, you get a certain number of people from your party’s list in the Knesset (Israeli parliament). I plan on getting a high enough spot on the Likud’s list to get a seat in the Knesset. After you are in the Knesset your spot on the list doesn’t matter.
I am not sure though that I would want to be a government minister. I am talking about a revolution in Israel, but if I accept a cabinet position under a leadership that will continue in the same direction, I will end up being a part of the problem instead of part of the solution. So I am not sure at all that I want to be a minister. I want to be prime minister.
Rabkin: Israel is in serious trouble today. What needs to be done to turn things around?
Feiglin: The problem is much more than Olmert not giving the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) an order. Not that I like Ehud Olmert, believe me; I am not one of his fans. But the problem is much bigger. The problem is our mentality. Since Rabin’s handshake, the entire state of Israel marched into a state of mind of pragmatism and non-spirituality.
We don’t need more F-15s and F-16s from America. That is not our problem. What we need is to march back into the right state of mind. And for that we need leadership. True, authentic leadership based on Jewish values – a leadership for Israel that believes in the G‑d of Israel.
Look at Olmert and many of the other leaders of Israel today. They can’t even explain to their own kids why we established the State of Israel to begin with. Olmert’s kids are not in Israel (Olmert’s son Shaul lives in New York and has been associated with anti-militaristic left-wing groups. His other son, Ariel, studies French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris). The same thing is true of our other current leaders.
What we need is a Jewish revolution to take back the leadership – and it has already begun. We are growing stronger every day. Last August the Likud held primaries, a race that was not only going to define the leader of the Likud party, but also the next prime minister of Israel. Every fourth Likudnik, your average Israeli, voted for me. And do you know what my slogan was in that race? “Feiglin – Because He Has a G‑d.”
And let me tell you something else – in the next primaries I will win. I say this because the concept of Jewish leadership, leadership that will lead the State of Israel in the name of G‑d, leadership that will lead the State of Israel with Jewish values, leadership that knows where it comes from and where it is going, real Jewish leadership, is picking up steam and cannot be stopped. This totally new concept, which is being attacked from all sides, is gaining more and more popularity. And believe me, it will continue. We cannot lose, we cannot stop going in this direction, because without Jewish leadership there is no hope. No hope for Israel and no hope for the entire Jewish nation.
I say the entire Jewish nation because whatever happens in Israel immediately reflects back on all Jews worldwide. When the Jews in Gush Katif were dragged from their homes, what happened to the level of anti-Semitism worldwide? It went up, of course. Israel did what the world expected of us and anti-Semitism went up. When we defied the world and did what we had to do in 1967, the level of anti-Semitism dropped. Suddenly every Jew on the streets of Toronto or New York was proud to be a Jew. So you see, what happens in Israel immediately affects all Jews worldwide. A proud Israel with real Jewish faith, that knows what it stands for, impacts on every Jew.
MOSHE FEIGLIN is the founder and president of Manhigut Yehudit (the Jewish Leadership movement), dedicated to building authentic Jewish leadership for Israel. For more information or to order Mr. Feiglin’s newest book, The War of Dreams, visit http://www.jewishisrael.org/.
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