Twenty years ago, MK Moshe Feiglin began a long journey. The journey’s end
is the prime ministerial seat. In the meantime, he has managed to block
traffic in the entire country, be put on trial, change the rules of the game
in the Likud and feud with Binyamin Netanyahu, who buried a number of land
mines under his legs. The land mines delayed the unconventional politician,
but did not stop him. Today he is a Member of the Knesset and serves as
Deputy Speaker of the Knesset.
The media still don’t know how to digest Feiglin the politician after years of categorizing him as an extremist and crowning him as the leader of a subversive group called “The Feiglinites”: Finally, they have begun to accept him. Feiglin, who is considered the most eloquent and one of the most talented speakers from among the rightist MKs, has become a popular guest in Israel’s television studios and news programming. Even when the media do not agree with him they are much more accepting of him than they were in the past.
Now that the political novice has spent many months of basic training in the Knesset, we set out to meet MK Moshe Feiglin to find out if anything has changed, moved or softened in his well-defined ideology.
“When it comes to my beliefs, I really don’t think that anything has changed. That is expressed in the way I vote in the Knesset,” says Feiglin, sitting down on the swing on his wooden porch. “I cannot vote against my conscience; that simply doesn’t work for me. If there has been any change, it is in my ability to accept different opinions and communicate with others.”
He also has an explanation for the change in his ability to accept and communicate with others: “When I established Zo Artzeinu twenty years ago, the neighbor across the street didn’t know my name. I was simply Tzippy’s husband. But then, with Zo Artzeinu, I blocked traffic in the entire country. Israel came to a halt. All at once, the whole country recognizes you and is forced to form an opinion of you, because they can’t get to work and they can’t get home. During that era, the media was totally drafted to support Peres and Beilin. They turned me into a demon, into their monster. You are in a situation in which you have no way to get your message out to the public without the media, which are on a single track against you. They cannot not interview you because you are the story, but they do everything they can to turn you into a monster. So you appear on the famous political show, Popolitika, and the entire panel sitting around you wants to eat you alive. You have one or two minutes to deliver the knock-out punch. Frequently, I did manage to deliver a knock-out punch, but the price of a punch is that you can’t do it softly. The struggle for the Land of Israel can turn you into a porcupine brandishing its quills.”
READ MORE:
Feiglin Sheds His Bristles
The media still don’t know how to digest Feiglin the politician after years of categorizing him as an extremist and crowning him as the leader of a subversive group called “The Feiglinites”: Finally, they have begun to accept him. Feiglin, who is considered the most eloquent and one of the most talented speakers from among the rightist MKs, has become a popular guest in Israel’s television studios and news programming. Even when the media do not agree with him they are much more accepting of him than they were in the past.
Now that the political novice has spent many months of basic training in the Knesset, we set out to meet MK Moshe Feiglin to find out if anything has changed, moved or softened in his well-defined ideology.
“When it comes to my beliefs, I really don’t think that anything has changed. That is expressed in the way I vote in the Knesset,” says Feiglin, sitting down on the swing on his wooden porch. “I cannot vote against my conscience; that simply doesn’t work for me. If there has been any change, it is in my ability to accept different opinions and communicate with others.”
He also has an explanation for the change in his ability to accept and communicate with others: “When I established Zo Artzeinu twenty years ago, the neighbor across the street didn’t know my name. I was simply Tzippy’s husband. But then, with Zo Artzeinu, I blocked traffic in the entire country. Israel came to a halt. All at once, the whole country recognizes you and is forced to form an opinion of you, because they can’t get to work and they can’t get home. During that era, the media was totally drafted to support Peres and Beilin. They turned me into a demon, into their monster. You are in a situation in which you have no way to get your message out to the public without the media, which are on a single track against you. They cannot not interview you because you are the story, but they do everything they can to turn you into a monster. So you appear on the famous political show, Popolitika, and the entire panel sitting around you wants to eat you alive. You have one or two minutes to deliver the knock-out punch. Frequently, I did manage to deliver a knock-out punch, but the price of a punch is that you can’t do it softly. The struggle for the Land of Israel can turn you into a porcupine brandishing its quills.”
READ MORE:
Feiglin Sheds His Bristles
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