How and Why I shifted from Disengagement Supporter to Feiglinite Overnight

It was simple, really. All it was, was a matter of shifting of dreams.

When the second Intifada, or Oslo War, broke out late in 2000, I was 17 years old and living in America. From that year until the waning of the terrorist onslaught four years later, I was on constant defense-mode for Israel. When I went to college I even participated in a few of those "pro Israel rallies" and every so often would run into a group of "pro Palestinian rallies" and fume and pace and rip my hair out in frustration.

Every time the UN would do whatever it does, every time the world would say STOP when Jews picked up their weapons to defend themselves, my skin would crawl. When Arafat's helicopter was bombed when I was in 11th grade, it was so satisfying, and I only wished that Israel would do more, but knew that she wouldn't. A Hamas terrorist would be blown up by an F16 and I would breathe a sigh of relief. I knew that Israel could end the war if the world would just let her crush the murderers, or better yet, if she'd just ignore "the world". But I knew that it would never happen. It was maddening.

Yet, despite all that, and probably even because of it, when Ehud Olmert first threw out the phrase "Disengagement from Gaza," my eyes lit up. I thought it was a great idea. I became an immediate enthusiastic supporter of the concept and couldn't wait for it to go through. The critical point I want you to understand right now is why.

I was never a supporter of Oslo. I never liked the idea of dialogue with a group of people who obviously want to kill us all. Yet, I didn't see anyone capable of annexing Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank. Talking with the Arabs was a waste of time, dangerous, and a show of weakness. The Oslo War proved that well enough. So what to do?

It was all a question of tactics for me. Israel was caught directionless. Either annex the territories or let them go. Pick one. I was begging for some sort of direction for the country. Just enough of the stalemate. But what could actually work? What was "messianic nonsense" and dangerous thinking, and what was "pragmatic"? To me, hanging on to our Biblical homeland was nice, but impossible. What we had to do was simple. Cut off all contact with the Arabs there, take as much land as we possibly could, build a giant fence, let go of the rest, and every time they shot a rocket off to our side of the fence, warn them to leave a certain area, bomb it, clear it, and annex it to Israel. Disengagement was the only way to get this started.

That was my peace plan. It required no dialogue, and very little risk as I saw it.

Then the disengagement actually happened. Kadima was formed. I loved Kadima. It seemed like such a uniting force. Had Sharon survived until the next election, they would have won 50 seats.

But Israel didn't have the leaders necessary to make the "disengagement dream" work. Disengagement was my dream because it signified a direction, SOME direction, of some sort. The plan after that was to hunker down behind our side of the fence, watch the Arabs rot in civil war, munch some popcorn while Fatah and Hamas inevitably stabbed each other to death, and wait for the Messiah to come and finish the Redemption process.

Then Gilad Shalit was kidnapped and we lost the Second Lebanon War. The Second Disengagement was taken off the table in a flash. We were back, directionless. What the heck were we supposed to do now?

Then I saw an article in the Jerusalem Post about some guy named Feiglin who, said Bibi, "may get a high Knesset slot and there may be nothing we can do about it." I'd heard of this guy before. I remember reading about him in the American Jewish newspaper The Forward, seeing a picture of this guy wearing a kippah, who won 3% of the vote for the Likud leadership. My impression of him was, "This guy is a weirdo. What kind of stupid name is "Jewish Leadership"? It sounds like a support group for disgruntled unemployed Rabbis."

That was about it.

Then I see he might actually be elected to the Knesset. So I look him up. Maybe he's not just a weirdo. That's when my soul, pretty much, caught fire, and it remains raging to this day.

I will go into this more deeply in a later post. This one is getting too long. Yet let me quickly explain what happened to me that night. I spent the rest of it, until about 3:00 in the morning, poring through articles, videos, audio clips, past news, anything I could possibly get my hands on.

What happened, basically, was that I suddenly understood that there is a leader out there who wants to unite everything. Religious and secular, Left and Right, every single Jewish party into one huge force. A man who believes in God who actually wants to lead the Jewish people. If that could happen, the possibilities are blown open exponentially.

I suddenly realized why the Disengagement failed. It failed not because it was handled incorrectly or because Sharon had a stroke or any other reason other than that it was destined to fail. The Disengagement proved to the world that none of this is our land. It's all theirs. We have no more justice. This statement went against the progression of history. We are here not to duck behind a fence and wait. We are here to finish the process of redemption through justice. I thought that was impossible because there was no one to take responsibility for leading the process. The religious politicians were just interested in subsidies for their yeshivas or building another neighborhood in Ariel or some paltry thing. But now there is a movement that wants to lead the entire country, the entire people, in the name of God.

Now, every time the UN does something ugly, or the world tells us to do something suicidal, or there's another "Pro Palestinian" rally at some campus, I just laugh. Anti semitism has become somewhat comforting instead of infuriating. It's infuriating when you don't know how it will end. It's comforting when you know that the Jewish people are finally starting to take responsibility for their destiny.

The second dream was possible. We don't have to hide behind fences. We can actually win it all. We can, must, and will fulfill our destiny here. No more cutting and running. We are here to inspire the world. That we must do, or we have no right to be here. All we are asked to do is sign a paper that says "I am part of the Jewish majority, religious or secular, Haredi, Dati, or Hiloni, we're all coming together in the same party."

Just like my soul caught fire, the rest of the Jews' will, too. For me, all it took was to see that there was a potential leader. For them, all it will take is a Likud primary race victory. After that, the unity you will see will be unprecedented. Just join by clicking the link in the subtitle of this blog. It takes 45 seconds. That's all.