Feiglin won’t run in election; decries fixation on personas rather than ideas

Moshe Feiglin, who mounted a surprisingly successful Knesset bid in the April 2019 election before losing ground in the end and narrowly failing to enter the parliament, announces his Zehut party will not be running in the upcoming poll.

In a statement, Feiglin laments that the Israeli political arena has become too fixated on issues related to personas rather than ideas, leaving no room for ideology-oriented parties.

Zehut party leader Moshe Feiglin at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Kfar Hamacabiah in Ramat Gan announcing Zehut’s withdrawal from the September elections, on August 29, 2019. (Flash90)

“The people politics has completely erased the ideas politics,” he writes. “We are left only with the crippling stalemate between ‘yes Bibi’ and ‘not Bibi,’ and as a result, it is impossible to implement any meaningful policy in Israel.”

He is referring to the fact that the main division in the country’s current politics are focused on either supporting Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu or opposing him, rather than on policy plans.

Feiglin asserts that the next vote will not break that stalemate, adding that he will consider running in the future if a fundamental change occur in the country’s politics.