Sunday, December 07, 2008

Likud Moderates vs. Feiglins: Who Should I Root For?

Tomorrow the Likud holds its primaries to elect its list for the Knesset. Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping that right-wing extremist Moshe Feiglin and his supporters, known as "the Feiglins", will not do very well. He fears that if they make it into high places on the list it will cost the party a significant amount of votes. I'm sure he's right. A radical Likud Knesset list would definitely hurt Netanyahu in his race against Tzipi Livni.

I have mixed feelings about the results I'd like to see coming out of tomorrow's vote. A part of me would like to see the extremists win, so that Likud will lose to Kadima in the general election. However, as an Israeli, I don't really want these dangerous nuts in my parliament. I'd rather see moderates like Dan Meridor, Asaf Hefetz and Uzi Dayan get into the Knesset than Moshe Feiglin.

I've come to the conclusion that I'd like to see the moderates in the top 20, spots considered safe, and I don't want the Feiglins to be in completely unrealistic spots, like 40 and up, but rather places that are on the brink - mid-20's to mid-30's, places where people will say to themselves, "if my vote is the one giving Likud a 26th (or 30th) seat and putting that guy in the Knesset, I'd rather vote for a different party."

No comments:

Post a Comment