Feiglin rails against ‘deep state’ in Tel Aviv mega-event
“It’s time to free the political system from the paralysis of the past 70 years,” Feiglin said.
By LAHAV HARKOVMoshe Feiglin(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI)
Zehut leader Moshe Feiglin called to replace the “deep state” with a “free state” in a speech to an estimated crowd of nearly 2,000 in Tel Aviv Tuesday night.“It’s time to free the political system from the paralysis of the past 70 years,” Feiglin said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Left or Right, they both want a lot of state intervention – the deep state – and dividing the land – two states.”“We think there need to be more possibilities. We shouldn’t just be choosing between people [in elections], we should be choosing ideas. This is finally something different,” Feiglin added, saying his party wants a “free state and one state.”Zehut has consistently risen in the polls over the past month and could be a kingmaker after the election, determining who will be the next prime minister with his choice of what kind of coalition to join.“Zehut is not in anyone’s pocket,” Feiglin said. “There is a lot of fake news. Don’t listen to anyone or believe anyone. The big parties are both leaking that we closed a deal with them. We talk to everyone and respect everyone but we really, really are not in anyone’s pocket.”Feiglin’s speech emphasized freedom as his primary value. He called his audience, which was a mix of religious and secular Israelis and mostly young, “a new and free generation that is no longer enslaved to all the old, musty dogmas.”“The forces of enslavement on the Right and Left are attacking us… See how they fear us,” he said. “All the commissars of the false consciousness are afraid.”Feiglin said the value of freedom is important for Israel and the Jewish people, in that “freedom is necessary to fulfill our destiny as a nation.”“We want to turn this into a country that’s less invasive… We will free ourselves from the burden of the big unions and the Histadrut [National Labor Union]. We will free ourselves from the cynical politicians who surrendered and sold us out. You deserve to live here and not just survive. You deserve to be free,” he said.As for after the election, Feiglin said that “the genie has been released and we won’t go back in,” and his supporters won’t return to “divisive labels of Right, Left, Ashkenazi, Sephardic… that are meant only to keep us weak and surrendered.”
Feiglin also referred to his party’s platform of legalization of cannabis, which has drawn voters from outside the traditional Right to his party.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also discussed cannabis legalization in a Likud campaign event Tuesday, saying: “I authorized medical cannabis, I authorized growing cannabis for export and Israel is turning into a cannabis exporting power, and today the first step towards decriminalization went into effect, and there will be more. Whoever is for the plant should vote Likud.”
