The following is a letter I recently wrote to the head of the right-wing Mattot Arim organization, which annually rates rightist Knesset members on their successes and failures in serving their right-wing constituencies.
I received the form to be filled out for your annual rating of the rightist MKs. After reading it, I request that my name not be included in this report. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for your efforts to empower right-wing activism, but I believe that this method perpetuates the situation in which the Right protests while the storm continues to unleash its fury. Do not get me wrong: I admire every effort, large or small – as long as it is focused on the main goal.
My main goal, as is well known, is to change the direction in which the state of Israel is moving: to transform it from a state of all its citizens plunging over the Oslo cliff to a Jewish state dedicated to rectifying the world. A scathing criticism of [Secretary of State John] Kerry, or a strongly worded letter against Israel’s surrender to Europe’s dictate on scientific research, are fine and good. But they are ultimately ridiculous when the same protesting MKs flee the Knesset plenum instead of voting for the law that would halt negotiations on Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.
Tonight terrorists will be released. This could have been prevented if just a few MKs would have joined me in voting against the state budget. But the MKs received high marks of approval on your annual report for their loud protests against the terrorist release. Some of them will receive even higher marks for their part in the additional construction in Judea and Samaria – despite the fact that the building is the concealed and despicable swap for the terrorist release.
With great sorrow, I must say that Mattot Arim encourages and perpetuates this phenomenon. This two-sided game is what made the expulsion from Gush Katif possible. It made it possible for the entire national camp to flee the Knesset plenum on the vote against negotiations over Jerusalem – despite the fact that the proposed law would have stopped the negotiations that are paving the way for the next expulsion or abandonment of Judea and Samaria.
To date, there have been three major Knesset votes that were critical for saving Israel from its plunge over the Oslo cliff. The first was the vote over the state budget. My solitary nay vote was a vote against the terrorist release and the quiet collusion of the Right to make the release conditional on construction in Judea and Samaria.
The second was the vote on the Jerusalem Bill. I voted in favor of the bill to prevent negotiations over Jerusalem while the entire national camp fled the Knesset plenum.
The third, which in my opinion is the most severe, is when the national camp voted in favor of the proposal for gay couples to be recognized by the Israel Tax Authority. The sole goal of this law is to dismantle the family unit, which is the building block of the Jewish nation. I have stood by my principled stance on these issues and others, such as the Temple Mount, surrender of the Negev to the Bedouins, and more – sometimes against the entire coalition. In addition, I have advanced change on national issues no less important, such as the status of the family, medical cannabis, [the push for] one chief rabbi, housing, budgetary pension, and more. In doing so, I turn to all the citizens of the state of Israel. I want to lead them all – not just the rightists.
There is no dearth of articles, press releases and interviews that I can send you to [bring forth] more points. But your report is part of the conduct perpetuating the current crisis situation in a desperate attempt to improve it – instead of changing it from its very foundation. I am not willing to be part of behavior that reminds me of the battered wife syndrome: The husband betrays and beats her while all she wants is for him to lie to her just one more time and afford her a few more minutes of living in denial.
If we want to live, I suggest that you measure the MKs by the way they vote and how they work to advance the faith-based alternative for leadership of Israel.