Right-wing leaders lash out at Feiglin’s ‘leftist’ party members

Several right-wing leaders on Wednesday morning went on the offensive against Moshe Feiglin’s far-right, pro-cannabis Zehut party in an attempt to stop its steady rise in polls — largely at their expense — ahead of next week’s Knesset elections.

Zehut, which wasn’t initially predicted in opinion polls to clear the electoral threshold for entry to the Knesset in the April 9 elections, has surged in popularity in recent weeks and is currently polling at four to seven seats. With Feiglin insisting he does not have a preference between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main election rival Benny Gantz as Israel’s next premier, the party could emerge as a kingmaker in a tightly contested race.

Apart from his pro-cannabis platform, Feiglin is also pushing a radical quasi-libertarian policy package with a religious and nationalist twist.

Some other members of the party aren’t known to share Feiglin’s ultra-nationalist views, and at least one of them — No. 4 Ronit Dror — is a longtime former supporter of the left-wing Labor party who says she has changed her views.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the newly founded New Right party, warned voters Wednesday that Feiglin’s party members could jump ship and join a government that would evacuate West Bank settlements, similar to when three members of Rafael “Raful” Eitan’s Tzomet party defected and joined Yitzhak Rabin’s coalition in 1994 to approve the Oslo Accords.

“Many of Feiglin’s voters are young religious Zionists,” he said at a Maariv/Jerusalem Post conference. “I tell the youth: Feiglin is a person with good intentions, but behind him are right-wing and left-wing people and that is exactly what happened to us with Raful in 1992. People he brought in dismantled our home.”

“Every vote for Feiglin brings the bulldozer closer to your home,” Bennett charged. “You will regret that. It’s almost a phenomenon of messianism. Don’t cast a ballot that will demolish your home.”

Bezalel Smotrich, the co-leader of the Union of Right-Wing Parties (URWP), denounced Zehut’s support for cannabis legalization.

“A right-wing party doesn’t enable the flooding of Israeli streets with drugs,” Smotrich told Radio Galey Israel. “We need to establish order. Alcohol and cigarettes are legally restricted, yet every nine-year-old kid knows how to get them.

“There’s something very tempting about Feiglin, I must admit,” he added, offering indirect criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Labor chief Avi Gabbay and others who have recently expressed support for cannabis legalization or decriminalization.

“When I first saw Feiglin crossing the electoral threshold, I noticed that all party heads were having a contest over who had smoked more and who is more of a ‘man’s man,'” Smotrich said.

URWP’s No. 7, Itamar Ben Gvir of the extremist Otzma Yehudit faction, also speaking to Radio Galey Israel, said, “I respect Moshe and we have been partners in the struggles over the Land of Israel, but apart from Zehut’s problematic opinions on public transportation on Shabbat, civil marriage and more, Zehut’s list features people with a leftist worldviews who never participated in any important struggle for the Land of Israel.”

Feiglin, who got pushed out of the ruling Likud party four years ago for his maverick attitude and extreme positions, has taken the campaign by storm, putting cannabis high on the national agenda and forcing the frontrunners to take a stand on the issue. He’s also one of the few party leaders to refrain from endorsing either Netanyahu or Gantz.

But on Wednesday, the Ynet news site cited party officials as saying it intends to drop its demand that cannabis legalization be explicitly mentioned in the coalition agreement, understanding that it could be complicated in light of objections from the URWP and the ultra-Orthodox parties.

However, they still said Zehut “won’t enter any government without it being made explicit there will be legalization already in the first session of the Knesset.”

If asked to join the next government, Feiglin has said, he would pursue the finance and education portfolios and join a coalition with “whoever will allow me to advance the party platform in the widest and most significant way possible.”

The political manifesto of Feiglin’s Zehut — Hebrew for “identity” — includes canceling existing agreements with the Palestinians, making Arab Israeli citizens pass a loyalty test, and offering them financial incentives to emigrate elsewhere if they refuse to accept Jewish sovereignty over the land.

He has also spoken out against women, gays and Reform Jews. In 1995, shortly before Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, he orchestrated raucous protests against the Oslo Peace accords. The Supreme Court sentenced him to six months in prison for sedition against the state, a term later commuted to community service.

During his campaign, Feiglin has downplayed his past as an ultra-nationalist activist and insists he is currently focused on civic issues alone.

Times of Israel staff and AP contributed to this report.