Israel Matzav

Video: Moshe Feiglin with Attila Somnalvi

Here's an interview with Moshe Feiglin. The interviewer is Yediot writer Attila Somnalvi.

Let's go to the videotape. An English language transcript will follow.

Moshe Feiglin on "The Central Game" (with English translation) from Manhigut Yehudit on Vimeo.

Here's a transcript in English:

Moshe Feiglin is interviewed on Israel's Channel 2 by Attila Somfalvi, Wed., May 12, 2010

English Translation (follows)

ATTILA: Shalom to you. Today on our show, Moshe Feiglin, head of the Manhigut Yehudit faction of the Likud and the red cape that manages to anger and irritate Binyamin Netanyahu will be with us and will try to explain what he really wants and if his presence in the Likud is over. Shalom to our main guest, Moshe Feiglin.

MOSHE: Shalom, shalom.

ATTILA: Do you still manage to carry on your back all the attacks and the forces that are attempting to eliminate you and to throw you out of the Likud? I am asking you seriously, because I saw you cry two weeks ago.

MOSHE: I cried about Jerusalem, not about myself. As far as I am concerned, I have no problem and I feel that I am certainly succeeding. In other words…

ATTILA: I can calm you down and tell you that Jerusalem will manage just fine without Moshe Feiglin. But you personally have been for not a few years…

MOSHE: You are really not calming me down, Attila. Jerusalem is being divided and surrendered. For all practical purposes, it has already been divided. Someone asked me how do I know. I said that just like the boy who knew that the emperor had no clothes. I simply allow the picture that my eyes see enter my brain. Everyone knows the facts and I assume that you also know.

MOSHE: But as to your question, how do I stand up to all the pressure: Churchill, during WWII – when England was losing all the time – it looked terrible, at least at the beginning. So he said, "We are winning from defeat to defeat." It is impossible not to admit that every time we are accused of not succeeding, we get stronger each time.

ATTILA: You yourself understood that you were defeated in the Likud Central Committee two weeks ago. It is no coincidence that you have called meetings of all your supporters and activists to reconsider your path in the Likud. I assume that it is not for naught. You understand that you do not have enough power. You understand that they do not want you there. You understand that you do not have influence over what is happening in the Likud.

MOSHE: I could have somehow agreed with the first comments that you made. But to say that I have no influence? Yachabibi! Who made Jerusalem a burning issue two weeks ago and forced your and my prime minister to run around like the last of the small-time politicians and to sweat and to convince people that it had nothing to do with Jerusalem when even the Americans said afterwards that he committed himself to surrender Jerusalem? Who did that?

ATTILA: I am not sure that the Americans said that he committed himself to surrender Jerusalem. Let us be precise. But I am asking you on the political level: Moshe Feiglin…

MOSHE: I don't think that there is one citizen in the State of Israel who does not understand that what I said is true, and the truth will become even more clear. The only person who forced the prime minister into a position where he had to deny this was yours truly.

ATTILA: OK, so he denied it, so what are you doing now?

MOSHE: That means that we – myself and Manhigut Yehudit and the entire public that follows us - are certainly in the arena in which the battle is being waged. We do not always win, but at least we are fighting.

ATTILA: OK, let us progress from there.

MOSHE: You didn't ask why. Why leave if it is so successful?

ATTILA: Exactly. If you are so successful and if you have managed to initiate political processes and if you have managed to make Bibi Netanyahu fold, so why do you want to leave now?

MOSHE: That is exactly the important question in this whole story. You have to understand why we entered the Likud. I did not come to the Likud to influence Bibi or anybody else. Not the ministers… I did not come to the Likud to influence. I finished with the attempts to influence with the magnificent demonstrations of Zo Artzeinu. I came to the Likud because I understood that our state was going in the wrong direction, in a direction that would G-d forbid lead to its collapse, in a direction that we see today that even ministers like Bogi Ya'alon, the Deputy Prime Minister, can't fly to Europe.

ATTILA: You understood that you have not succeeded in changing the Likud, you are not managing to prevent the collapse – what you call collapse – but I am talking about something completely different.

MOSHE: No. If you give me another minute, you will see that I am not talking without meaning. I did not come to the Likud to influence. The reason that the State of Israel is losing the legitimacy for its very existence in the world – in every place not just in Judea or Samaria or Tel Aviv but a Jewish State on the face of the globe – is because it disconnected from its Jewish identity. I came to the Likud to offer Am Yisrael – first of all to the Likud and through the Likud to the entire nation – leadership that is based on Jewish identity. Now the question is: Can the Likud still be the tool for the leadership of the national camp?

ATTILA: I hear you and I would like to share with you something personal that happened to me a few days ago. I watched an American film about religious preachers throughout America and I wonder, throughout this intimate discussion that we are holding…

MOSHE: Just the two of us…

ATTILA: Almost…I wonder if you feel some Divine mission? When you are alone at home in front of the mirror, do you think, "G-d is talking" as George Bush would say, "This is my mission." Maybe that is what you feel?

MOSHE: G-d does not talk to me any more than He talks to you.

ATTILA: He doesn't talk to me.

MOSHE: I did not see any nightly visions. The light was not revealed to me yesterday at sunrise or anything like that. I do believe in the things that I was educated to believe. I do believe in the dream of my fathers – and also your fathers. Perhaps I still believe in the dream of your fathers. That is the reason that we came here, and only in its merit will we remain here.

ATTILA: You talk of concepts like Jewish identity and safeguarding the nation and Jerusalem. These are slightly messianic concepts, if you will.

MOSHE: I am definitely messianic. I certainly see the Jewish vision, which is also messianic and I'm not afraid to say it, the idea to perfect the world, the basic Jewish idea of Abraham who went out 3,400 years ago with the idea to bring good to the world – to perfect the world. The idea to perfect the world is the idea of the Nation of Israel, it is the idea on which it is founded.

ATTILA: In the framework of your dream or idea – to perfect the world – would you be willing to drive out Arabs from greater Israel?

MOSHE: How did Arabs get into this discussion?

ATTILA: Coincidentally, they are here. I'm talking about the good things that you want to do.

MOSHE: The only people who drove Arabs out of here were the people of the Left, the people of the Labor party in the War of Independence.

ATTILA: They did it de facto.

MOSHE: In practice, the only ones who drove the Arabs out were followers of the Left.

MOSHE: I do not think that the Arabs are the problem. I think that the entire battle is taking place between the Jews and themselves over the question: What will be the identity of this State? A state of all its citizens? The Singapore of the Middle East as Shimon Peres once called it, or a Jewish State? As soon as we determine the answer to this question, it will also solve our problems with our neighbors.

ATTILA: What type of state would you like to see? If you were PM for three days, what would you do during those three days? How would you change the state? Would you close down the Supreme Court? Would you execute a few people? What would you do so that the state would be as you would like to see it ?

MOSHE: Why? Are you interested in executing people?

ATTILA: For example! Maybe there are those people who should be…

MOSHE: Listen, Attila, Clearly it is impossible to close the Supreme Court. But what must be done is to ensure that the judges of the Supreme Court will be elected by representatives of the people, and will reflect the values of the nation and not the values of a tiny group.

ATTILA: The values of the religion.

MOSHE: The values of the nation, under no circumstances the values of religion. Judaism is not a religion. Judaism is a culture. And there are those who deny that culture. You ask me what type of state I would like there to be, I will answer you with one sentence that includes everything. I do not want a state that begs the nations of the world for a drop of legitimacy for its very existence, but just the opposite – a state that the nations of the world look to in their quest for moral legitimacy. That is the significance of what I am talking about.

ATTILA: I don't understand how you would do that. We are dependant on other countries and also on the international community and also on other people, the US and Obama.

MOSHE: I understand that it is hard for you to understand , but you should know that the vast majority of humanity – that believes in the Bible and whose culture is based on the Bible, that yes – believes in G-d – is waiting for you to finally present it with the moral compass that is sorely missing today from the world.

ATTILA: Our time is almost up, so I want to quickly ask you: In the space of a month or two, is Moshe Feiglin going to be leaving the Likud – perhaps in a new movement?

MOSHE: We have to put some politics into this discussion! We are certainly pondering if the Likud can still be the leadership tool of the national camp – for all sorts of reasons, both democratic and intrinsic. We are now holding discussions with all our activists and it will take time until we decide.

ATTILA: Moshe Feiglin, thank you very much, this was an interesting discussion.

Hmmm.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:26 PM