{"id":605528,"date":"2026-09-04T10:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/605528\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T10:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T10:22:10","slug":"feiglin-forgives-bezalel-smotrich-for-harsh-comments-as-parties-plan-joint-knesset-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/605528\/","title":{"rendered":"Feiglin forgives Bezalel Smotrich for harsh comments as parties plan joint Knesset run"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zehut party chairman Moshe Feiglin said that he fully forgave Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for the harsh comments made against him in the past, while discussing their parties’ joint run in the upcoming election<\/a> with 103FM on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what you do not understand is that it is possible to forgive as well,\u201d Feiglin explained. \u201cWe are in the month of mercy and forgiveness. The fact that I truly forgive is not just lip service. You probably have not experienced the pressure of political campaigns, during which he said those things. I have experienced it, and I can understand how a person gets to that point. I forgot about it, and now you are reminding me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feiglin went on to clarify the planned political arrangement, explaining that the Zehut party and the Religious Zionist Party were running as a technical bloc. \u201cWe are a completely separate party from the Religious Zionist Party. We respect it, but we will run a separate campaign and operate separately afterward. After the elections, each party will go its own way, without a doubt. I believe we are going to bring five Knesset seats in the upcoming elections, and the connection with Smotrich will bring a double digit number of mandates, \u2018read my lips.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Feiglin\u2019s demands is the Defense Ministry portfolio. When asked, \u201cHow can a person who is irresponsible and megalomaniacal be defense minister?\u201d Feiglin chuckled and responded, \u201cWith all due respect, the person who has been fighting Oslo for 30 years and the processes that led to the massacre, I was your loyal servant. The line represented by the Zehut party is a line that knew how to predict this massacre better than all the generals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discussion later turned to security issues and the Israel-Hamas War. Feiglin strongly criticized the handling of the campaign and explained why he opposed hostage release deals.<\/p>\n

\"MosheMoshe Feiglin attends a Health Committee meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on November 16, 2021. (credit: OLIVIER FITOUSSI\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this deal will lead to the next kidnappings. I did oppose it, and I still oppose it,\u201d he said emphatically. \u201cThe hostages could have been brought back after two weeks simply by shutting off Gaza\u2019s water supply<\/a>, a real siege. Anyone who wanted a cup of water would have left the tunnels with a hostage. That is why it took two years and has not ended. The first decision should have been that Gaza must be defeated immediately, and that this problem must be eliminated rather than leaving future generations with another round of kidnappings and massacres.\u201d<\/p>\n

October 7 was fault of both right and left, Feiglin claims<\/p>\n

Regarding responsibility for the October 7 failure, Feiglin refused to point a finger at the political leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cResponsibility for the massacre is divided equally between both sides, between the left and the right,\u201d he claimed. \u201cAlthough the left, through Oslo, brought the terrorists to the doorstep of the kindergartens of Kibbutz Be\u2019eri and directly caused the terrible massacre, the right, which came to power in 1996 and did not cancel Oslo, cannot avoid responsibility. Netanyahu, when he did this thing of transferring funds to Hamas, did something terrible, without a doubt. But when the left was in the transition period into power, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid also continued it and were proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether there was a “betrayal from within” that led to the massacre<\/a>, Feiglin responded cautiously. \u201cI truly do not know if we will ever be able to know, because everything is hidden and concealed. But one thing I do know: shortly before October 7, there was a terrible betrayal here by those who did everything they could to openly dismantle the army, especially with foreign state money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, Feiglin expressed reservations about the involvement of the judiciary, saying that while he believed a commission of inquiry must be established, “at the same time, the High Court of Justice is a political party. On this specific issue, I completely agree with the Likud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feiglin accuses LGBT community of ‘progressive coercion’<\/p>\n

At the end of the interview, the Identity chairman addressed the controversy surrounding his comments about the LGBT<\/a> community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not against the rights of anyone, on the contrary. The Zehut party brings uncompromising personal freedom for every citizen of Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cNot long ago there was Pride Month. Everywhere I go, pride flags are flying over every mountain and hill. Imagine if I declared a Temple Month and the entire country mobilized budgets to put Temple flags throughout Israel. What would people shout? Religious coercion. So when there is progressive coercion, that is acceptable? Straight people also deserve rights.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zehut party chairman Moshe Feiglin said that he fully forgave Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for the harsh comments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[147752,1982,50,85,46,58195,61,14406,31480,10124,273821,43,112344,35649,62374,58,273822],"class_list":["post-605528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2026-israeli-elections","tag-bezalel-smotrich","tag-gaza","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-knesset","tag-lgbt","tag-lgbtq","tag-moshe-feiglin","tag-news","tag-october-7-commission-of-inquiry","tag-religious-zionist-party","tag-religious-zionists","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-zehut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}