Moshe Feiglin
Moshe Zalman Feiglin is a right libertarian-leaning Israeli politician and activist, and the leader of libertarian Zionist party Zehut. As a member of Likud, he headed the Manhigut Yehudit faction within the party, and represented Likud in the Knesset between 2013 and 2015.
Prior to becoming a Knesset member, Feiglin co-founded the Zo Artzeinu movement with Shmuel Sackett in 1993 to protest the Oslo Accords. On 8 August 1995, eighty intersections throughout the country were blocked in a massive act of non-violent civil disobedience against the Oslo process. As a result of his activities, Feiglin was sentenced to six months in prison in 1997 for sedition against the state by Israel's Supreme Court. The sentence was later commuted to community service. In November 1996, Feiglin established the Manhigut Yehudit movement; it joined Likud in 2000, with Feiglin declaring that he would be a candidate for chairmanship of the party as a springboard for premiership of the State of Israel.
In early January 2015, Feiglin announced that he was leaving the Likud and forming his own party, after the Likud primaries the previous month.
Feiglin complained about efforts that were done to try to keep him out of Israel's parliament, the Knesset. He referred to alleged political corruption in the Likud primary and legal maneuvers Benjamin Netanyahu took in the past to move him down the party’s list, accusing the prime minister of trying to assassinate him politically.
As a result of the above issues and timing, Feiglin did not form a new party for the Knesset elections in March, and instead decided to take his time to build a strong new party. In July 2021, Feiglin returned to the Likud. In January 2024, Feiglin left Likud and reestablished Zehut.
Feiglin's party Zehut is in favor of legalizing marijuana.
Biography
Moshe Feiglin was born in Haifa, the son of Ya'akov Zvi and Esther Feiglin. His ancestors moved to Palestine, from Imperial Russia during the First Aliyah. His grandfather was the first child born in Metula, and some of his ancestors were among the founders of several settlements, including Mishmar HaYarden, Hadera, and Kinneret. His father served in the Jewish Settlement Police during the British Mandate era. His family later moved to Rehovot, where he attended the local Tachkemoni school of the Mizrachi movement, and subsequently graduated from Rabbi Haim Drukman's Yeshivat Or Etzion. They are also related to Rebbes of The Chabad Dynasty.During his IDF national service, Feiglin served in the Engineering Corps. He later signed on to one additional year as a career soldier, and attained the rank of captain. He fought in the 1982 Lebanon War.
Feiglin ran a company that used rope rappelling in the construction industry.
Feiglin is married, and has five children, and lives in the settlement of Karnei Shomron.
Political career
Manhigut Yehudit
Feiglin co-founded the Manhigut Yehudit movement in 1996. It began as a brainchild of Feiglin and a friend of his, Moti Karpel, who established the organization as the continuation of the Zo Artzeinu protest movement. The main tactical difference between the two in Feiglin's thought is that Zo Artzeinu protested government policy without suggesting an alternative, whereas Manhigut Yehudit seeks to become the government and be the alternative.Lacking the tools to do this, and without a political party with which to stake his run, he was approached by a founding member of the Likud party and participant in the Zo Artzeinu protests who proposed that Feiglin register for the Likud party and register, in turn, the thousands who participated in the protests, thereby building a support base for himself in the party, from which he could run for the party presidency and, in turn, Prime Minister.
According to Feiglin's own words, Manhigut Yehudit was started to "return the country to the people and lead the State of Israel through authentic Jewish values".
Feiglin says that the movement's leadership will arise from "those who have a deep commitment to Torah values". Still, 30 percent of its present members are secular. He opposes the surrender of what he regards as Jewish land, and has demanded the government take action against the estimated 50,000 illegal Arab structures built throughout the country. Feiglin has stated that Likud had "given up true Likud values and acquiesced in the Gaza evacuation".
Likud
Feiglin was a minor candidate in the 2002 Likud leadership election.In 2005, Feiglin again ran for Likud chairman and won 12.5% of the votes, coming third out of seven candidates, after Benjamin Netanyahu and Silvan Shalom. He attempted to run for a slot on the party's Knesset list, but encountered severe opposition from Netanyahu, who delayed party elections and advocated making changes to its charter to bar "anyone who has served three or more months in prison" from running as a Likud MK. This would have prevented Feiglin, who served a six-month sentence in the mid-1990s for civil disobedience, from running for either an MK or leadership position in the future. Feiglin withdrew from the race on 3 January 2006, following the release of a statement from the Likud party election chairman declaring, in agreement with a prior decision by the Israeli High Court, that Feiglin's conviction was not for "dishonorable" violations of the law, allowing him to participate in future Likud affairs.
In the 14 August 2007 primaries, Feiglin nearly doubled his previous showing and received 23.4% of the votes to Netanyahu's 72.8%. Netanyahu, fearing a strong showing by Feiglin, tried to have him ousted from the party prior to the vote, and said he would continue such efforts. On 10 December 2008, Feiglin was won twentieth place in the Likud primaries. On 11 December, following a petition submitted against him by Ophir Akunis, he was demoted to the 36th spot.
In an article written in 2009, Feiglin stated: "Sad to say, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a pitiful puppet of Peres and his cohorts."
Feiglin ran against Netanyahu again in the 2012 Likud leadership election, held on 31 January 2012, and again received 23% of the vote. In the Likud primaries held in late 2012 to select candidates for the 2013 elections, Feiglin finished thirteenth, and was elected to the Knesset in the 2013 elections.
Feiglin served as Deputy Speaker in the 19th Knesset. He and his Manhigut Yehudit faction suffered a serious setback in the December 2014 Likud primaries, held in the run-up to the 2015 Knesset elections, when he fell to the 36th position on the Likud list, making it unlikely he would be returned to the Knesset. In January 2015, he announced that he was leaving Likud to form his own party, although he did not do so in time for the elections. Shortly after the elections, he announced that the new party was to be called Zehut.
In July 2021, Feiglin returned to the Likud.
Views and opinions
Feiglin has openly stated that, though he is not opposed to peace, peace is not his goal, and would not be on the top of his agenda as Prime Minister. Rather, Feiglin's focus is on reforming Israel as an essentially Jewish State by acting on several campaigns on the religious, social, legal, and security fronts.In a May 2012 article on liberty that originally appeared on the NRG Maariv Hebrew website, Feiglin wrote: "Liberty means fighting against coercion of all kinds; religious, anti-religious, economic, cultural, educational, and more. Liberty means allocating state land to the citizen. It means privatization of government firms to the public, and not to core shareholders. Liberty means liberalized communication - broadcasting license and not broadcast franchise. You want to open up a television or radio station? Buy a wavelength and broadcast as you please within the framework of the law. Liberty means restoring the responsibility for education to the parents, using the education coupon method. It means a gradual transfer to a professional volunteer army. Liberty means prohibiting biometric data bases or any other type of human designation. There is no difference in principle between sophisticated biological marking and tattooing an ID number; both turn our identities into the property of a third party. In both, we lose our freedom. Simply put: We have one G-d above us, and we should not be enslaved to another person or mechanism. The state is ours, and under no circumstance is the opposite true."
He is against religious coercion and the establishment of religious political parties. He has come out against legislation such as the Chametz Law, which forbids selling leavened products on the Passover Holiday, when eating or owning leavened food products is prohibited by Jewish law.
He is also a proponent of the civil marriage initiative in Israel which would allow any Israeli citizen to marry without a religious cleric. At present, marriage in Israel is impossible outside the confines of a religious system; hence, for tens of thousands of people with problematic religious status, it is impossible ever to get married in the country. The present system also places the power of divorce in the hand of the Religious courts, who are answerable only to the Supreme Courts. The civil marriage initiative would make the religious nature of marriage entirely voluntary, effectively separating religion and state in this matter.
Feiglin has advocated removing the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf's control over the entire al-Aqsa complex, and stated that a synagogue should be established on the Temple Mount. In February 2014, at Feiglin's insistence, the Knesset debated the status of the Temple Mount. Feiglin's platform states:"We have to internalize that this is our Land - exclusively... Most important: We must expel the Moslem wakf from the Temple Mount and restore exclusive Israeli sovereignty over this most holy site."
In July 2014, during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, Feiglin outlined steps toward "achieving quiet in Gaza". His plan included attacking all of Gaza, its infrastructure and military sites, without regard to civilian "human shields". After conquering and annexing Gaza into Israel, that portion of Gaza's "enemy population that is innocent of wrong-doing and separated itself from the armed terrorists will be treated in accordance with international law and will be allowed to leave". After becoming part of Israel, Gaza would be re-populated by Jews. He said the civilians of Gaza could go to Sinai, and his plan would also "ease the housing crisis in Israel". Feiglin criticized lawmaker Aliza Lavie for discussing legislation on sexual violence, protesting that in wartime, no one should be "talking about things like flowers and sexual assault".
On August 4, 2014, the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper alleged that Feiglin had called for concentration camps in Gaza. In a TV show with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Feiglin denied that claim, saying he was talking about creating "sheltered areas" for the civilians of Gaza so that Israel could stop rockets by Hamas in a more effective way. He also said that he "definitely" supported "tent encampments" before the people in Gaza can be relocated to another place.
In 2008, Feiglin has proposed a plan to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. His plan would include annexing all post-1967 land currently in Israel's hands and offering financial incentive for Palestinian families in these areas to emigrate to other countries. Feiglin pointed to a poll by An-Najah University in Nablus, which showed that one in three Palestinian Arabs would emigrate to other countries even without a financial incentive, as supporting his plan.
About 20% of Israel's citizens are Israeli Arabs. Feiglin was asked about Israel's status as a "Jewish and democratic state" in a 2004 interview, and stated: "Why should non-Jews have a say in the policy of a Jewish state?... For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a Jewish state, not a democratic state. Democracy should serve the values of the state, not destroy them..."
In 2003, Feiglin proposed replacing the Knesset with a bicameral legislature, whose upper house, which would control all "national affairs", would be "composed exclusively of Jews". Point three in the program states that he will enact a new Basic Law which will set forth a detailed proposal for a constitution. The Law will replace the at-large election of the Knesset with regional representatives, and would also create a lower house to handle municipal issues, in which Israeli Arabs could be represented. The posting was taken down on December 9, 2008, the day after Feiglin won twentieth place in the Likud primaries. However, the posting had been archived by Israeli scholar Tomer Persico prior to being removed, and Persico wrote a 2012 article analyzing Feiglin's program, referencing the 2003 posting.
On 3 April 2019, Feiglin gave a speech at Maariv Jerusalem Post conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, in which he called to rebuild the Third Temple on Temple Mount immediately. He said in a statement: "I don't want to build a Third Temple in one or two years, I want to build it now. To build the Temple, I need support; I can't do it alone."
After the 2023 Hamas attack, Feiglin said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the only solution is the “complete destruction of Gaza, before invading it… Destruction like Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon.”
On 15 June 2024, Feiglin said, in the context of the Gaza war, "As Hitler said 'I can't live if one Jew is left,' we can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza and not before we return to Gaza and turn it into Hebrew Gaza."
On 22 May 2025 Feiglin told Israeli TV Channel 14, in the context of the Gaza war, "The enemy is not Hamas, nor is it the military wing of Hamas... Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There is no other victory."