Our Views
 

Where Do We Go From Here?
by: Moshe Feiglin
Founder and President, Manhigut Yehudit
Elul, 5766 (Sept., '06)
 

Everyone is talking about the Commission of Inquiry that will investigate Israel's failure in the second Lebanon War. But the question is not who must be dismissed from his position. The answer to that is easy. The question is who – and what—must come in their place. Manhigut Yehudit presents the direction in which it intends to lead Israel. 

Education: The first hour of every school day will be dedicated to Jewish identity. 

During the Holocaust, some Jewish children were hidden in monasteries. These children had often entered the monasteries at age two or three, and completely identified with their new saviors. But when the Jewish emissaries who searched for these children throughout Europe would enter the monastery, there was a sure way to identify them. The emissary would stand on a chair and call out, "Shema Yisrael…" and the Jewish children would automatically finish the sentence that had accompanied them from the time that they were born. At that point, it was easy to return them to their own nation and identity. 

Although the Holocaust did not succeed in erasing the Jewish children's identity, the Israeli educational system, in many cases, has. The majority of children in the State of Israel of 2006 cannot complete the "Shema Y israel" phrase. This is the phrase with which our ancestors were burned at the stake, the phrase that kept them unified as a nation during2000 years of exile, the phrase that every Jew says when he goes to sleep – essentially it is the slogan of the Jewish nation throughout the generations. 

Most of the soldiers in the standing army had never visited Jerusalem before they were conscripted. The products of the Israeli educational system lack basic knowledge of Jewish history, Bible and the Land of Israel. Without Jewish education there is no Jewish identity, no past and no future. 

Family - The normative family must be restored to its status as the cornerstone of society. The way that the government can encourage this is to provide families with tax breaks and other benefits. 

The number of "single parent families" in Israel has climbed by 500% in the past decade. This is a severe social landslide. Without the family, society cannot exist. Of course, every person has the right to run his life as he chooses. Sometimes, parents are forced to raise their children alone, and they do it well. But, this is not the optimal situation. Ideally, a child needs both his mother and his father. There is no replacement for the family unit. It is the healthy foundation from which a person can set out on his adult life – the cornerstone that builds society and the nation. 

The post modern Left attacks all the traditional infrastructures of society. That is the essence of its existence. The concept, "single parent family" is a new invention. It is Orwellian "newspeak" that is not meant to help the single parents forced to raise their children alone. Instead, it is a concept coined by the Left in order to legitimize an incomplete reality and to give it equal footing with the normative family. In this way, it undermines the status of the family unit.  

To prevent the breakdown of the family unit and the crumbling of society, the State should provide benefits to young couples and to mothers who prefer to raise their children at home. If there is no family, there is no society, and if there is no society, there is no State. 

Security - The Likud constitution calls for the implementation of sovereignty on all parts of the Land of Israel. Security means territory. In the most basic way, a secure person is a person who has solid ground under his feet. To triumph in a war means to conquer territory. These are basic concepts that are not politically correct in our post modern era. But in the recent Lebanon war we clearly saw that we cannot fight, we cannot win and we cannot provide Israel's citizens with security without them. On the contrary. Our enemies must know that if they attack us, they will lose their territory – forever.  

When Israel conquered the Golan Heights in the Six Day War, the 100,000 Syrian citizens who had lived there were forced to return to Syria. Since then, the Golan Heights have been sovereign Israeli territory – much safer than most places in Israel. This is the model that Israel should adopt for any territory that it conquers. When our enemies are convinced that we are willing to die for every particle of liberated territory, they will be convinced to live with us in peace. Of course, security is the function of a basic feeling of the justice of one's cause. We must believe that this Land belongs to us – and only to us. Without territory there is no security and without security there is no State. 

Supreme Court – The method for electing judges must be urgently reformed. Israel's judges must be chosen by the representatives of the people and must reflect the nation's values. 

Currently, the Supreme Court judges choose themselves under the facade called the Judiciary Selection Committee. The Supreme Court judges are alienated from the values of our nation and represent the "enlightened" ideals of  a small, disengaged elite. When deposed Justice Minster Chaim Ramon dared demand that a protocol of the deliberations in the closed-door sessions of the Selection Committee should be kept, he was summarily disposed of. This ought to trigger loud warning bells for whoever thinks that he is living in a free country. 

The Supreme Court is the root of the ills described in the above paragraphs. It is the Supreme Court that supports and promotes the self-destructive leftist agenda from which this country suffers. A judge is supposed to guard his nation's values. He is supposed to steer the country in the direction of its values.  

My country, my birthplace is indeed marching today. Precisely in the direction that the "enlightened" judge is steering it.