Banned From England, Feiglin Tours U.S.,Elliot Resnick, <i>Jewish Press Staff Reporter</i>

"We are going to win," Moshe Feiglin told the rapt Teaneck crowd of 150 on Sunday. "The only question is how long and how painful the process will be."

The speech was part of a two-week-long tour of the United States for Feiglin, head of the Manhigut Yehudit faction in Israel's Likud party. This past Tuesday, he and Manhigut Yehudit International Director Shmuel Sackett were scheduled to visit Jonathan Pollard in jail, and a week prior they celebrated their organization's sixth annual dinner with 450 supporters in Queens.

Feiglin, whose stated aim is to become Israel's prime minister, had an eventful past year. In August he ran against Benjamin Netanyahu in the Likud primary, garnering 24 percent of the vote - almost doubling his 2005 primary total. And just last month, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith barred Feiglin from entering the United Kingdom, claiming his presence "would not be conducive to the public good."

Citing examples of Feiglin's offending statements, Smith quotes Feiglin as writing, "Arabs are not sons of the desert, but its father." Ironically that quote in slightly modified form originally comes from a 1938 book by the British High Commissioner of Sinai, Sir Claude Jarvis.

"The existing situation can't continue," Feiglin told the crowd. "Surveys show that most Israelis today don't believe that the State of Israel will exist 20-25 years from now and it is not because the IDF is not strong enough or because the economy is bad. It is because Israel is disconnected from its basic Jewish roots. In order to survive, we need Jewish leadership."

Introducing Feiglin, Sackett said, "We have built yishuvim, chesed organizations, shuls and mikvehs in Israel, and we have fought in the army. [But] we have never taken up the challenge of leading the Jewish people."

In response to a skeptic, Feiglin noted that half the people who voted for him last August were not religious, and that Manhigut Yehudit's members range from haredi to ex-Shinui voters. "Our message is for everybody," he said.

Answering a question about how he would conduct a potential war against Hizbullah or Hamas, Feiglin replied, "I will simply do what's good for the Jews, and if there is a need to bomb civilians, yes, that's what we'll do."

In a post-lecture interview with The Jewish Press, Feiglin said, "There is no such thing as innocent civilians. These murderers came out of a helpful population, a population that encouraged them and created them. The separation between the terrorists and the population that created these terrorists is a false one, and we should stop giving them this shelter."

Had he been prime minister on the day of the Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav attack that left eight Israeli teenagers dead, "the whole village where this killer came from would've paid a price," he said.

Whether the world would agree with his policies is unimportant, he said. Levi Eshkol launched the Six-Day War and Menachem Begin attacked Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in opposition to world opinion. Interestingly, Feiglin noted, the United States only began heavily assisting Israel after the Six-Day War, when it "occupied" the West Bank.

"When Israel does what it's supposed to do," he said, "the world accepts it and salutes it. We just need to have pride in who we are."

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