Eidelberg's Obsession with
Feiglin
By Shmuel Sackett, International Director, Manhigut
Yehudit
editor@jewishisrael.org
www.jewishisrael.org
Cheshvan 5766 (Nov, 05)
For
the last month, Professor Paul Eidelberg has written -- and spoken -- virtually
non stop about Moshe Feiglin. He has stated, over and over and over again
how staying in the Likud is a waste of time and counter productive. In his
recent Arutz-7 radio interview, entitled "Why Recruiting People Into The
Likud Means More Oslo," Professor Eidelberg even went so far as to
say; "to register for the Likud, to give one's name to such a party is more
than dishonorable -- it makes a mockery of the 10,000 Jews left homeless
by that party."
Professor Eidelberg states that none of his attacks
on Moshe Feiglin are personal and actually testifies to Feiglin's "impeccable
character." Furthermore, he extends "both hands in friendship to him and
his followers." Professor Eidelberg demands he be listened to since he calls
himself an expert in Israeli politics, "having lectured in universities for
three decades" and "having written hundreds of articles and books on the
subject of Israeli politics".
Let's now take a look at the facts.
Professor Paul Eidelberg is the President of the
Yemin Yisrael Political Party in Israel. This party was founded in 1996 by
Miriam Lapid, after the tragic murder of her husband and son, and by former
Moledet Knesset member Shaul Gutman. Yemin Yisrael ran for the Knesset in
the elections held on May 29, 1996. 44,604 votes were needed as a minimum
to get elected to the Knesset and the Yemin Yisrael leaders ran around Israel
promising victory. Many thousands of people voted for this party, yet Yemin
Yisrael did NOT pass the minimum, and thousands of right wing votes wound
up in the garbage.
On May 17, 1999 elections were held once again for
the Knesset and a united right-wing bloc was formed; Herut, Moledet and Tekuma.
The Yemin Yisrael party did NOT join together in this bloc and, once again,
ran on its own. This time 49,672 votes were needed as a minimum and although
they couldn't get 44,000 votes in '96 they assured the people of Israel that
they would pass the minimum. Once again many thousands of people believed
them and voted Yemin Yisrael and, once again, the precious votes were
wasted.
On January 28, 2003 elections were held yet again
for the Knesset. Shortly before, the Professors for a Strong Israel, issued
the following press release:
Statement to the Press -- December
11, 2002
Re: Stop this factionalism, stop wasting
votes!
Professors for a Strong Israel calls
on the small parties in the National Camp to give up their efforts at running
separately. These are parties that have no hope of amassing the minimum number
of votes needed for the Knesset representation, but that can still waste
thousands of precious votes that the larger parties of the Right should be
getting. The small parties must join the larger parties that also oppose
a Palestinian state west of the Jordan and that are sure to pass the
minimum.
This call is addressed in particular
to Michael Kleiner's Herut, to Paul Eidelberg's Yemin Yisrael, to Yosef Ba-Gad's
Moreshet Avot and to Moshe Green's Tzomet. We recall that in 1992 the splintered
National Camp garnered more votes than did the Left, but the Left won nonetheless
and brought the country the Oslo disaster.
Professors for a Strong Israel urges
voters of the National Camp not to waste their votes on fly-by-night party
lists that have no hope of sitting in the Knesset.
What did Professor Eidelberg do? He united his party
together with Herut and ran together with them. On the eve of the elections
I spoke to an excited supporter who was told by party leaders that this new
union; Herut and Yemin Yisrael, would get 4-6 seats. The minimum required
was 47,226 and they were predicting votes in excess of 100,000.
Once again, reality proved otherwise to these "political
experts". Over 40,000 votes were in fact secured but the Herut-Yemin Yisrael
party fell 5,000 votes short. The fears of the Professors for a Strong Israel
came to fruition as over 40,000 right wing votes became totally useless.
After three miserable political failures -- and 70,000
wasted votes -- Professor Eidelberg is once again telling us he knows best.
In a recent article, dated Oct 16, 2005 entitled "Pitfalls of the Jewish
Leadership Movement" Professor Eidelberg states that he now favors creating
a large party. (What happened to all the years he was in support of small
parties???) His mathematical equation for success is the following: Take
Likud voters who "feel betrayed" and add that to the "obvious failure of
National Union and the National Religious Party" and you can get... (ready
for this one???) "750,000 votes -- enough for 30 seats"!!!! (Note: I am not
making this up! This is a quote from his article,
(Click here to see for yourself). In other words, Professor
Paul Eidelberg, who never passed the minimum number of votes needed, has
never even won ONE Knesset seat and is virtually unknown amongst the Hebrew
speaking population in Israel is now predicting THIRTY seats in the next
election! This is a political expert???
Dearest readers; Nobody ever said taking control
over Likud would be easy. Moshe Feiglin never promised instant gratification.
Not one Manhigut Yehudit leader ever claimed to be an expert in anything.
All we ask is that you consider the following:
In less than six months, primaries will be held within
Likud to determine who will be the leader of the party and, in essence, the
Prime Minister of the State of Israel. As of this writing, four men are running
in that race; Ariel Sharon, Bibi Netanyahu, Uzi Landau and Moshe Feiglin.
Which of those four men would you like to see as Prime Minister? Most people
I ask that question to answer, "Moshe Feiglin." There's only one problem;
If you are not a member of Likud you cannot vote for him!! Imagine that:
FINALLY, you have an opportunity to throw Sharon out and make sure he is
not replaced by one of his political clones and you can't do it because Professor
Eidelberg convinced you not to join Likud!
But there's more! Within two months after primaries
for party leadership, the Likud will hold its internal elections to determine
the order of its Knesset list. 3,000 people -- all members of the Likud "Central
Committee" -- will vote for that Knesset list. Each one of those 3,000 people
was elected by members of the Likud party in regional elections. This means
that if you are a member of Likud you have a voice in determining who sits
in the Knesset for that party! Will it continue to be Meir Sheetreit, Ehud
Olmert and Tzippi Livni or will it be Michoel Fuah, Motti Carpel and Nitza
Kahane? If you feel that joining Likud is like eating "treif" then you had
better get your signs ready because you will be protesting the government
for the next 50 years! You will march with the Yesha Council to places like
Kfar Maimon, you will sleep on hilltops, you will get arrested, you will
say Tehillim with 250,000 other people at the Kotel and you will go on 13
hunger strikes but when you are given an opportunity to make a change and
FINALLY change the direction of Israel's ruling party you will be home sleeping,
following the advice of political experts who told you to vote for small
parties, then big ones, then medium ones, then back to small ones...
Professor Eidelberg; Let's
stop the attacks on the National Union, NRP and Manhigut Yehudit. It's
counter-productive! Let's work together towards what we all want; An authentic
Jewish State in the Land of Israel. Let's figure out how different personalities
who share a common dream can work together; Effi Eitam, Benny Elon, Nadia
Matar, David HaIvri, Moshe Feiglin, Aryeh Eldad, Mike Guzofsky, Michoel Kleiner,
Ketzele, Baruch Marzel, Daniella Weiss etc... These people all want the same
thing but have different ways of getting there. Let's pool our resources
and work together, some from the inside and some from the outside. Let's
become a team where not every body is the quarterback but every one is aiming
for the goal line. This will make our political power stronger, our message
clearer and our followers excited! This will insure the fact that no votes
are ever wasted! By working inside Likud we pressure the leadership party
to move in the direction we want. By simultaneously -- and in full coordination
-- working outside Likud we apply a "full court press" and grab away many
Knesset seats from parties who do not share our common vision. By working
on the grass roots level we educate our youth and involve people on a regular
basis.
Nothing will ever be gained by working alone and
thinking of ourselves as "experts." Hashem gave His nation many talents and
we must use all of them to achieve success. The path that Manhigut Yehudit
has chosen is clear to everyone but we will work with all other groups in
a united front for the good of the Jewish People. In short, since we share
the DREAM... let's become a TEAM!
Click here to learn more about Manhigut Yehudit's
policies:
The Crisis,
The Goal,
The Plan, and
Manhigut Yehudit
in Action.
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