The Cinderella story of Israel’s current election campaign is a fringe party led by an ultranationalist libertarian with a criminal record who vows to legalize marijuana, and seems to diverge dramatically from the long list of quirky candidates of the past who have drawn attention to their improbable runs for parliament.
For starters, Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut party has a real shot of getting elected next month and could even emerge as a kingmaker in a tightly contested race for prime minister. But his seemingly liberal civic platform, which has generated a strong hipster following, could be masking a far more polarizing agenda.
Feiglin, who got pushed out of the ruling Likud party four years ago for his extreme right-wing positions, has taken the campaign by storm, putting cannabis high on the national agenda and forcing the front-runners to take a stand on the issue. He’s also one of the few party leaders to refrain from endorsing either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his top challenger, retired military chief Benny Gantz.
“We are in nobody’s pocket,” Feiglin told Israel’s Army Radio recently. “Legalization is the condition for us joining any government.”
The message seems to be catching on, ironically, in the first election in 20 years that the single-issue Green Leaf party has refrained from running. In response to what has been dubbed the “Feiglin effect,” Netanyahu this week boasted about increasing the availability of medical cannabis and approving its export, making Israel just the third nation in the world to do so. He also promised to “examine” the issue of legalization for recreational use.
Labor Party leader Avi Gabbay said he was in favor of legalizing, calling cannabis less dangerous than alcohol. In a radio interview, he then disclosed he had smoked it himself in the past. And the dovish Meretz party, seeking to reclaim what would seem to be its natural electorate, issued a reminder that it was the first party in parliament to promote the issue while others were now merely catching up.
But Feiglin, an observant, Jewish West Bank settler who doesn’t smoke marijuana himself, has been the one cashing in, finding an unlikely audience among urban youngsters drawn to his message of personal freedom and domestic policies, which, besides legalization, include an anti-labor union platform that promotes school vouchers, animal rights and free market economics.
With his skullcap, trim beard and small round-frame glasses, the 56-year-old Feiglin hardly cuts the image of an iconoclast. But he’s become an internet sensation with viral animated online hipster memes portraying him as a cool gangster with sunglasses and a joint hanging from his lips.
It’s a stunning makeover for a man who first made his name in Israel for orchestrating raucous protests against the Oslo Peace accords in the early 1990s. A recent cartoon in the Maariv daily poked fun at the irony of his drawing liberal supporters. Cast as the pied piper, Feiglin is shown leading a slew of smiling, glassy-eyed voters following the trail of smoke from a joint he is holding in the air.
“Feiglin is a revelation to young, secular supporters of the center-left,” explained commentator Yaron Dekel in the YNet news site. “He emphasizes that he is primarily liberal when it comes to the issue of religion and state, and a staunch supporter of the legalization of marijuana, but is hiding an extremely hawkish platform in every other arena.”
The political manifesto of Feiglin’s Zehut — Hebrew for identity — party includes canceling signed agreements with the Palestinians, making Israeli Arab citizens pass a loyalty test and offering financial incentives to them to emigrate elsewhere if they refuse to accept Jewish sovereignty over the land.
He’s also spoken out against women, gays and reform Jews. In 1995, shortly before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, his Zo Artzeinu (This is our Land) movement blocked dozens of major intersections that wreaked havoc throughout the country. The Supreme Court later sentenced him to six months in prison for sedition against the state, which was later commuted to community service.
Feiglin, who refused an Associated Press interview, has downplayed his past as an ultranationalist activist and insists he is currently focused on civic issues alone. In reinventing himself, he has managed to create the latest iteration of a regular Israeli election ritual of obscure and offbeat lists offering an entertaining diversion to those voters despairing over Israel’s weighty issues.
Previous parties have included a faction calling for the establishment of a national casino and a group led by a fishmonger and puppeteer that tried to abolish bank fees. An offshoot of Green Leaf aligned with elderly Holocaust survivors to make a run in 2009 and four years later its castaways ran as the Israeli Pirate Party, offering a platform promoting a variety of personal freedoms, including the right to sail the high seas.
Should Zehut manage to cross the electoral threshold, it would join the likes of the Israeli Pensioners Party that managed to win seven seats in the 2006 election and joined Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Cabinet. Seen largely as the recipient of protest votes against the system, the group of retirees led by an octogenarian former spymaster disappeared in the next election.
Feiglin’s Zehut party, however, could prove to have a greater impact if it eventually has a say in who forms the next government. Columnist Shmuel Rosner called its emergence a “deliberate, cunning distraction” that reflects the dire state of discourse and overall disgust with mainstream politics.
“It is the proof — and not the first — of the difficulty the public has in addressing complex issues that require expertise and in-depth study,” he wrote Thursday in Maariv. “Everyone has despaired and only wants to be given something to dull their senses. It could be that the marijuana in the campaign is simply medical cannabis to relieve pain.”
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
8 Responses
Anyone who has read his platform can see he has a whole lot more to him than just legalizing weed. In the last election I voted for Eli Yishai and a coworker of mine voted for Yair Lapid. Yet both of us were reading over Feiglin’s proposed policies shaking our heads yes. The fact that he can attract people from such divergent political views shows me he’s really on to something.
“Criminal record” – sedition is not a crime in the United States (since under the 1st amendment to the Federal constitution, speaking against the government is a civil right)
Ridiculous for YWN to say he has a “criminal record”. Everyone that the Judicial dictatorship of Israel feels is a threat to their power winds up with a “criminal record”.
He has a “criminal record” exactly like Martin Luther King did.
Popular because He wants to wreck the Rabbanut
The push to legalize recreational marijuana is a smashing success. Full steam ahead, carefree and without looking back, states and cities are on a high, stoned with excitement as they celebrate the legalization of recreational pot in their jurisdictions. From Washington to Vermont, California to Maine, Nevada to Michigan, Oregon to Massachusetts, Hawaii to Alaska and Colorado, and soon New Jersey and many other states and cities, progressives are gloating about their accomplishment.
Let’s take a closer look
It is interesting that those advocating for the legalization of recreational marijuana seem to be living in a cloud, oblivious to the history of marijuana laws and the serious health and safety concerns.
Since the early 20th century, the majority of countries in the world have enacted laws against marijuana, proscribing the cultivation and sale of cannabis, the source plant of marijuana. In the U.S., going back 110 years, cannabis was deemed illegal in numerous states as a poison, a habit-forming substance, and a narcotic. This was followed by decades of state and federal laws criminalizing cannabis and marijuana use and sale, similar to other illegal drugs. The legislative history of these laws points to the hazardous and mind-altering effects of cannabis and marijuana.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration documents:
About 1 in 6 people who start smoking marijuana in their teens will become addicted.
Smoking marijuana interferes with learning and memory, increasing the risk of poor grades and dropping out of school. Research shows it can lower your I.Q. if you smoke it regularly in your teen years.
Marijuana affects certain skills required for driving — reaction time, alertness, concentration, and coordination. According to a national survey, more than one in eight high school seniors admitted driving under the influence of marijuana in the two weeks before the survey.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse further addresses the effects of marijuana, enumerating:
changes in mood
impaired body movement
difficulty with thinking and problem-solving
impaired memory
hallucinations (when taken in high doses)
delusions (when taken in high doses)
psychosis (when taken in high doses)
The NIDA further writes:
Marijuana also affects brain development. Researchers are still studying how long marijuana’s effects last and whether some changes may be permanent.
Please see this NIDA document, which spells out many of the serious health effects of marijuana use:
Breathing problems. Marijuana smoke irritates the lungs, and people who smoke marijuana frequently can have the same breathing problems as those who smoke tobacco.
Increased heart rate. Marijuana raises heart rate for up to three hours after smoking. This effect may increase the chance of heart attack.
Problems with child development during and after pregnancy. Marijuana use during pregnancy is linked to lower birth weight and increased risk of both brain and behavioral problems in babies.
Intense nausea and vomiting. Regular, long-term marijuana use can lead some people to develop Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome. This causes users to experience regular cycles of severe nausea, vomiting, and dehydration, sometimes requiring emergency medical attention.
Temporary hallucinations.
Temporary paranoia.
Worsening symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Marijuana use has also been linked to other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among teens.
And the CDC warns:
Smoked cannabis has many of the same cancer-causing substances as smoked tobacco. Due to the risks it poses to lung health, experts strongly caution against smoking cannabis and tobacco products.
It is beyond hypocritical that the same liberals who are at war with the tobacco and drug industries have mindlessly joined — and have actually become — the most powerful marijuana lobby in the United States. Progressive politicians advocate for legalizing recreational marijuana, willfully oblivious to all health and societal concerns. And of course, although it is not politically correct to say so, it is known that the country’s minority populations will suffer the most by the pot liberalization drive, yet again bearing the brunt of counterproductive progressive policies.
Why in the world has the Left gone bonkers in its pursuit to legalize recreational marijuana? It is obviously not in the best interest of anyone, except for cannabis farmers, and liberals are traditionally not friends of the farming industry. What is going on?
The answer points to an insatiable quest for a permissive society intoxicated with pleasure and unbounded, instant gratification of the mind and flesh. Good values, hard work, and self-discipline have become four-letter words, and they are put down and delegitimized by the contrived cards of racism and infringement on human rights. This is the same warped, progressive mindset that declares that it is acceptable and good to murder babies (i.e., abortion at will, even when the fetus poses no physical risk to the mother), as such practice — which frees people of the burden of children — is somehow justified as a health concern and an inalienable right of the mother.
Liberal society’s pursuit of unbridled indulgence and absolution from responsibility is showcased by the marijuana debate, as what is proven to pose substantial health and safety risks to users and third parties is brainlessly legalized by the same people who claim to be most interested in protecting society. It is not at all different from a conservationist lobbying for the right to light forest fires and to obliterate natural habitats. The hypocrisy stares us in the face, while its advocates push forward without addressing any of the very real concerns.
As an Orthodox Jew, I am compelled by the approach of the Purim holiday to draw a correlation between the biblical story of Esther and modern events. As explained by a great rabbinic sage quoted in my previous article on this subject, one of the lessons of Purim is how a liberal society that seeks unbounded self-gratification gives way to a tyranny. Such transpired in the dominion of Persia’s King Ahasuerus, in which an excessively permissive society was easily overtaken by a maniacal despot. Only through a return to divine morality can goodness be restored.
Avrohom Gordimer is chairman of the Rabbinic Circle at Coalition for Jewish Values,
So much for the “dati” guy who used to call his party “Zehut Yehudit” (“Jewish Identity”). It appears that at present he’s thinking about some other kind of identity. Anything to get elected.
american_yerushalmi – I agree. This is absolutely shameful. Oy labusha.