Up until yesterday, Zehut Chairman Moshe Feiglin had been the person most courted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this campaign season. Netanyahu invited Feiglin for hours of private talks at his official residence. He called him. He showered Feiglin with attention in a way only Netanyahu can when he has an interest in them for his own personal reasons. All the attention paid off. Feiglin finally surrendered, and on Aug. 29 he and Netanyahu stood side by side at a Tel Aviv news conference savoring the moment. They reminisced about their past as enemies and celebrated their new friendship.
Netanyahu spoke first, announcing that Feiglin would be given a ministerial portfolio according to the agreement between their two parties. He also said that when the Knesset reconvenes after the Sept. 17 Knesset elections, a reform would be adopted to allow the import of medical marijuana, a Feiglin pet project. In exchange, Zehut will not contest the elections. When Feiglin spoke, he sounded almost in love, recounting that in his long talks with Netanyahu, he had discovered that they share the same economic worldview of the free market.
The Likud-Zehut agreement is important for Netanyahu in reducing some of the risks ahead in the tough battle that awaits him on Sept. 17. With Zehut out of the running, some potential Zehut voters, most of them young people who identify with the right, will vote for the Likud, while the remainder will support some other right-wing party. All in all, the votes won’t be wasted.
Politics works in mysterious ways. For years, Netanyahu tried to kick Feiglin out of the Likud, claiming that his extreme right-wing views, which bordered on messianism, were scaring away voters and losing the party crucial seats. Feiglin had built a significant base of support in the party’s official institutions, however, and was in no hurry to step aside for Netanyahu. On the eve of the 2009 election, Netanyahu tried to appeal to more centrist voters in the party by threatening Likud Knesset members that they might lose their chance at being promoted to minister if they cooperated with Feiglin. That demonstrates how serious he considered the damage caused by Feiglin to be.
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