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Moshe Feiglin is head of the Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud and can be reached via the web site.
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By Moshe Feiglin
December 12, 2005
For all practical purposes, one week remains until the Likud primaries. This is our big test. The Likud is most definitely in crisis. But any real and healthy birth comes from the midst of crisis.
We do not know which party will lead Israel after the impending elections. Yes, it is still possible, with G-d's help, that it will be the Likud. Sharon's Kadima party is the largest balloon to ever be inflated in the annals of Israeli politics. It is essentially the party of one old man who continues to ingest all the politicians -- from every party -- who lack an ideological base and simple integrity toward their voters. From the moment that Sharon will disappear (an entirely probable scenario), Kadima will turn into the largest ever refuse bin of political opportunism.
When Manhigut Yehudit joined the Likud, it was a dispirited opposition party with 19 Knesset seats. Labor party Ehud Barak was prime minister. But even when the Likud is in the opposition, it still remains the only leadership tool of the nationalist camp. In the struggle between the "Jewish majority" and the "Israeli minority", the Likud is the only resource with which the Jewish majority can lead the country. (As we know, the right wing and religious parties do not strive for the leadership slot.) This basic fact has not changed, despite the major turmoil now shaking the Likud.
The political earthquake that we are currently witnessing has deep significance. The extreme Left that, with the help of the Supreme Court, media and other elite power bastions, has gained control of Israel's consciousness had always managed to overpower the Jewish majority by controlling its only political tool. In other words, a Jew could vote for the Likud, but what he got would be extreme Left, the Meretz party. The elite dictatorship did not annul democracy so that it could control the Jewish majority; instead, it created a situation in which there was no relevance to the way the majority voted.
Ariel Sharon's abandonment of the Likud may fracture the Likud in the short run, but it also eliminates the ability of the elites to use the Jewish majority's political tool against itself. The curtain has now been raised. The confusion and deception have a name and a face -- Sharon and Kadima.
There are three months until the general elections and all the options are still open. But even if the Kadima balloon bursts only after the elections and the Likud goes into the opposition for the interim, we can already see the silver lining on this apparently dark cloud. Since the first Camp David, the Likud has been estranged from its own nationalist ideology. From the opposition, it will be forced to return to its identity and ideology.
Now that a major part of the opportunists have left the Likud, we will be able to stabilize the only leadership tool of the nationalist camp and to prepare ourselves for the Big Bang. As soon as Sharon disappears and/or Israel's voters realize that the balloon that they created is filled with nothing more than baseless deception, they will return to their roots -- to the Likud.
The Jewish majority has been presented with a great opportunity. If we have the wisdom to stabilize the Likud, to stabilize the internal conflicts within it, to work harmoniously with the honest people left in it and, most importantly, if we manage to prevent the Likud from repeating its past mistakes and this time remain loyal to its nationalist ideology, then the Likud can continue to lead the State of Israel for many years to come.
Once the Likud once again stands behind its ideology, it must turn to its natural allies -- the Nation Union, the National Religious Party and Shas -- and to all the parties whose agenda is Jewish identity. If the Likud succeeds in building a large Jewish bloc, "Jewish Israel", then it will net the votes of the Jewish majority and will enjoy the greatest electoral victory in Israel's history.
The real fault line of Israeli society is the question of Jewish identity. Standing proudly behind our Jewish identity is the key to changing Israel's leadership and to the transformation from disintegration to redemption.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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