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Far-right candidate threatens parties across Israeli political spectrum

Former militant right-wing ideologue Moshe Feiglin has reinvented himself and with support from both the right and the left, could hold the key to Israel's upcoming coalition negotiations.
Moshe Feiglin, leader of Zehut, an ultra-nationalist religious party, greets people as he campaigns ahead of elections at Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem April 4, 2019. REUTERS/Ammar Awad - RC170794A5E0
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In the run-up to the 2009 election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a poll to the Likud showing that the party stood to lose four seats if it included Moshe Feiglin in its Knesset list. Feiglin chaired the Likud’s far-right “Jewish Leadership” faction, made up mostly of settlers. It was the most extreme faction in the party at a time when Netanyahu wanted to shift toward the center, and he was concerned that Feiglin would harm the party’s image. His effort succeeded. Using a series of procedural moves, he was able to push Feiglin to an unrealistic 36th place on the list. But that was not all: Netanyahu also warned Likud Knesset members that anyone who participated in Feiglin’s events would not be a given a ministry in his next government.

Feiglin has long since parted ways with the Likud. In 2015, he founded the Zehut Party, which now looks likely to play a decisive role in the coming election. Polls predict the party winning five to as many as seven seats. While most of its supporters are religious Jews on the right, the current assessment is that it will get one and a half seats from the center-left. Feiglin of all people has managed to shatter the traditional divide between left and right and blur the differences between them.

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