Moshe Zalman Feiglin (; born 31 July 1962) is a right libertarian-leaning Israeli politician and activist, and the leader of libertarian Zionist party Zehut. As a member of Likud, he headed the Manhigut Yehudit ( Jewish Leadership) faction within the party, and represented Likud in the Knesset between 2013 and 2015.
Prior to becoming a Knesset member, Feiglin co-founded the Zo Artzeinu ("This is our Land") movement with Shmuel Sackett in 1993 to protest the Oslo Accords. On 8 August 1995, eighty intersections throughout the country were blocked in a massive act of non-violent civil disobedience against the Oslo process. As a result of his activities, Feiglin was sentenced to six months in prison in 1997 for sedition against the state by Israel's Supreme Court. The sentence was later commuted to community service. In November 1996, Feiglin established the Manhigut Yehudit movement; it joined Likud in 2000, with Feiglin declaring that he would be a candidate for chairmanship of the party as a springboard for premiership of the State of Israel.
In early January 2015, Feiglin announced that he was leaving the Likud and forming his own party, after the Likud primaries the previous month.
Feiglin complained about efforts that were done to try to keep him out of Israel's parliament, the Knesset. He referred to alleged political corruption in the Likud primary and legal maneuvers Benjamin Netanyahu took in the past to move him down the party’s list, accusing the prime minister of trying to assassinate him politically.
As a result of the above issues and timing, Feiglin did not form a new party for the Knesset elections in March, and instead decided to take his time to build a strong new party ("If we have to give up on the coming Knesset to build ourselves well and fundamentally, we will do so. We will take the time that we need to build ourselves in the proper and most exacting way."). In July 2021, Feiglin returned to the Likud. In January 2024, Feiglin left Likud and reestablished Zehut.
Feiglin's party Zehut is in favor of legalizing marijuana.
During his IDF national service, Feiglin served in the Engineering Corps. He later signed on to one additional year as a career soldier, and attained the rank of captain. He fought in the 1982 Lebanon War.
Feiglin ran a company that used rope rappelling in the construction industry.
Feiglin is married, and has five children, and lives in the settlement of Karnei Shomron.
Lacking the tools to do this, and without a political party with which to stake his run, he was approached by a founding member of the Likud party and participant in the Zo Artzeinu protests who proposed that Feiglin register for the Likud party and register, in turn, the thousands who participated in the protests, thereby building a support base for himself in the party, from which he could run for the party presidency and, in turn, Prime Minister.Feiglin, Moshe.מלחמת החלומות, Manhigut Yehudit: 2005, pp. 378–382
According to Feiglin's own words, Manhigut Yehudit was started to "return the country to the people and lead the State of Israel through authentic Jewish values". Moshe Feiglin: The Religious Jew Who Might Be A Future Israeli Prime Minister International Business Times, 26 February 2013
Feiglin says that the movement's leadership will arise from "those who have a deep commitment to Torah values". Still, 30 percent of its present members are secular (2005). He opposes the surrender of what he regards as Jewish land, and has demanded the government take action against the estimated 50,000 illegal Arab structures built throughout the country. Feiglin has stated that Likud had "given up true Likud values and acquiesced in the Gaza evacuation". Likud Leans Farther To Right IsraCast, 9 December 2008
In 2005, Feiglin again ran for Likud chairman and won 12.5% of the votes, coming third out of seven candidates, after Benjamin Netanyahu and Silvan Shalom. He attempted to run for a slot on the party's Knesset list, but encountered severe opposition from Netanyahu, who delayed party elections and advocated making changes to its charter to bar "anyone who has served three or more months in prison" from running as a Likud MK. This would have prevented Feiglin, who served a six-month sentence in the mid-1990s for civil disobedience, from running for either an MK or leadership position in the future. Feiglin withdrew from the race on 3 January 2006, following the release of a statement from the Likud party election chairman declaring, in agreement with a prior decision by the Israeli High Court, that Feiglin's conviction was not for "dishonorable" violations of the law, allowing him to participate in future Likud affairs.
In the 14 August 2007 primaries, Feiglin nearly doubled his previous showing and received 23.4% of the votes to Netanyahu's 72.8%. Netanyahu, fearing a strong showing by Feiglin, tried to have him ousted from the party prior to the vote, and said he would continue such efforts. On 10 December 2008, Feiglin was won twentieth place in the Likud primaries. On 11 December, following a petition submitted against him by Ophir Akunis, he was demoted to the 36th spot.
In an article written in 2009, Feiglin stated: "Sad to say, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a pitiful puppet of Shimon Peres and his cohorts."
Feiglin ran against Netanyahu again in the 2012 Likud leadership election, held on 31 January 2012, and again received 23% of the vote. In the Likud primaries held in late 2012 to select candidates for the 2013 elections, Feiglin finished thirteenth, and was elected to the Knesset in the 2013 elections.
Feiglin served as Deputy Speaker in the 19th Knesset. He and his Manhigut Yehudit faction suffered a serious setback in the December 2014 Likud primaries, held in the run-up to the 2015 Knesset elections, when he fell to the 36th position on the Likud list, making it unlikely he would be returned to the Knesset. In January 2015, he announced that he was leaving Likud to form his own party, Moshe Feiglin Leaves Likud, Forms New Party Israel National News, 5 January 2015 although he did not do so in time for the elections. Shortly after the elections, he announced that the new party was to be called Zehut ( Identity).
In July 2021, Feiglin returned to the Likud.
In a May 2012 article on liberty that originally appeared on the NRG Maariv Hebrew website, Feiglin wrote: "Liberty means fighting against coercion of all kinds; religious, anti-religious, economic, cultural, educational, and more. Liberty means allocating state land to the citizen. It means privatization of government firms to the public, and not to core shareholders. Liberty means liberalized communication - broadcasting license and not broadcast franchise. You want to open up a television or radio station? Buy a wavelength and broadcast as you please within the framework of the law. Liberty means restoring the responsibility for education to the parents, using the education coupon method. It means a gradual transfer to a professional volunteer army. Liberty means prohibiting biometric data bases or any other type of human designation. There is no difference in principle between sophisticated biological marking and tattooing an ID number; both turn our identities into the property of a third party. In both, we lose our freedom. Simply put: We have one G-d above us, and we should not be enslaved to another person or mechanism. The state is ours, and under no circumstance is the opposite true."
He is against religious coercion and the establishment of religious political parties. He has come out against legislation such as the Chametz Law, which forbids selling leavened products on the Passover Holiday, when eating or owning leavened food products is prohibited by Halakha.
He is also a proponent of the civil marriage initiative in Israel which would allow any Israeli citizen to marry without a religious cleric. At present, marriage in Israel is impossible outside the confines of a religious system; hence, for tens of thousands of people with problematic religious status, it is impossible ever to get married in the country. The present system also places the power of divorce in the hand of the Religious courts, who are answerable only to the Supreme Courts. The civil marriage initiative would make the religious nature of marriage entirely voluntary, effectively separating religion and state in this matter.
Feiglin has advocated removing the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf's control over the entire Temple Mount, and stated that a synagogue should be established on the Temple Mount. In February 2014, at Feiglin's insistence, the Knesset debated the status of the Temple Mount. Feiglin's platform states:"We have to internalize that this is our Land - exclusively... Most important: We must expel the Moslem wakf from the Temple Mount and restore exclusive Israeli sovereignty over this most holy site."
In July 2014, during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, Feiglin outlined steps toward "achieving quiet in Gaza Strip". His plan included attacking all of Gaza, its infrastructure and military sites, without regard to civilian "human shields". After conquering and annexing Gaza into Israel, that portion of Gaza's "enemy population that is innocent of wrong-doing and separated itself from the armed terrorists will be treated in accordance with international law and will be allowed to leave". After becoming part of Israel, Gaza would be re-populated by Jews. My Outline for a Solution in Gaza Israel National News, July 15, 2014 He said the civilians of Gaza could go to Sinai Peninsula, and his plan would also "ease the housing crisis in Israel". Feiglin criticized lawmaker Aliza Lavie for discussing legislation on sexual violence, protesting that in wartime, no one should be "talking about things like flowers and sexual assault". Gaza: It's a Man's War The Atlantic, 7 Aug 2014
On August 4, 2014, the Daily Mail tabloid newspaper alleged that Feiglin had called for concentration camps in Gaza. In a TV show with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Feiglin denied that claim, saying he was talking about creating "sheltered areas" for the civilians of Gaza so that Israel could stop rockets by Hamas in a more effective way. He also said that he "definitely" supported "tent encampments" before the people in Gaza can be relocated to another place.
In 2008, Feiglin has proposed a plan to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. "Pay Gazans to leave, right-wing leader says", in the Canadian Jewish News, 3 April 2008. By Sheri Shefa. Note that the article mistranslates "Yesha", an acronym for Judea, Samaria and Gaza, as merely Gaza. Feiglin's proposal was for all three of these regions. His plan would include annexing all post-1967 land currently in Israel's hands and offering financial incentive for Palestinian families in these areas to emigrate to other countries. Likud hardliner suggests paying Palestinian families to emigrate from West Bank Times of Israel, January 2, 2013 Feiglin pointed to a poll by An-Najah University in Nablus, which showed that one in three Palestinian Arabs would emigrate to other countries even without a financial incentive, as supporting his plan.
About 20% of Israel's citizens are Israeli Arabs. Feiglin was asked about Israel's status as a "Jewish and democratic state" in a 2004 interview, and stated: "Why should non-Jews have a say in the policy of a Jewish state? ... For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a Jewish state, not a democratic state. Democracy should serve the values of the state, not destroy them..."
In 2003, Feiglin proposed replacing the Knesset with a bicameral legislature, whose upper house, which would control all "national affairs", would be "composed exclusively of Jews". Point three in the program states that he will enact a new Basic Law which will set forth a detailed proposal for a constitution. The Law will replace the at-large election of the Knesset with regional representatives, and would also create a lower house to handle municipal issues, in which Israeli Arabs could be represented. The posting was taken down on December 9, 2008, the day after Feiglin won twentieth place in the Likud primaries. However, the posting had been archived by Israeli scholar Tomer Persico prior to being removed, and Persico wrote a 2012 article analyzing Feiglin's program, referencing the 2003 posting.
On 3 April 2019, Feiglin gave a speech at Maariv Jerusalem Post conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, in which he called to rebuild the Third Temple on Temple Mount immediately. He said in a statement: "I don't want to build a Third Temple in one or two years, I want to build it now. To build the Temple, I need support; I can't do it alone."
After the 2023 Hamas attack, Feiglin said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the only solution is the “complete destruction of Gaza, before invading it… Destruction like Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon.”
On 15 June 2024, Feiglin said, in the context of the Gaza war, "As Hitler said 'I can't live if one Jew is left,' we can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza and not before we return to Gaza and turn it into Hebrew Gaza."
On 22 May 2025 Feiglin told Israeli TV Channel 14, in the context of the Gaza war, "The enemy is not Hamas, nor is it the military wing of Hamas ... Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There is no other victory."
In a 2004 report in The New Yorker, Feiglin was quoted as saying: "Why should non-Jews have a say in the policy of a Jewish state?... For two thousand years, Jews dreamed of a Jewish state, not a democratic state. Democracy should serve the values of the state, not destroy them... You can’t teach a monkey to speak and you can’t teach an Arab to be democratic. You’re dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers. The Arab destroys everything he touches."
In an interview with the U.S.-based The Jewish Press, Feiglin said: "You can find places where we say the same things. You can also find places where we are different. I was in the army when Meir, Hashem yikom damo may, was most active, so I didn't get to know him so well. But I can definitely say that the slogan 'Kahane tzadak - Kahane was right' has proven itself many times."
Several commentators have depicted Feiglin as a fascist. Ha'aretz 10 December 2008 Yossi Sarid / Feiglin, his cronies are fascists by any definition by Yossi Sarid ME Times Fears of Fascism as Israeli Extremists Prepare to Take Elections by Mel Frykberg al-Ahram Heil, Feiglin! by Khaled Amayreh
In 2013, he set forth his legislative agenda regarding Israeli Arabs: "Zero tolerance for Arab citizens' defiance. Enforcement of laws of treason. Enforcement of laws against robbery, rape, and vandalism."
Feiglin, responding to a report that Israel's first permanent Arab Supreme Court judge Salim Joubran had refused to sing Israel's national anthem, asserted that Joubran "must return his Israeli ID card and make do with the status of 'permanent resident'".
According to a 2012 article in Haaretz, Feiglin condemned Baruch Goldstein over his killing of 29 Palestinian Muslims in a mosque in the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, though he did not condemn Goldstein's motivations.
Despite criticism from fellow Likud members, Feiglin has displayed favorable relations with a significant number of former Likud Knesset members. This was manifest during a Feiglin rally at Jerusalem's Ramada Hotel that took place before the 2008 Likud primary after Feiglin promised to throw all his votes to them if they showed up. Former Likud Knesset members Gila Gamliel, David Mena, Daniel Benlulu, and Ayoub Kara attended the event, despite warnings from Netanyahu's advisers not to do so. Gila Gamliel, who did not vote against the Disengagement from Gaza, eventually took Feiglin's votes and placed 19th, one spot ahead of Feiglin. This ultimately resulted in Feiglin getting pushed down to the 36th spot, and out of the Eighteenth Knesset.
"Throughout history", Feiglin explained, "from Rome to Europe in our day, the approval and spread of homosexuality presaged the decline of nations and cultures. If one reads the Torah portion 'Noah' - this comes as no surprise. . . . The organizers of a pride parade do not wish to gain rights. They strive to force homosexuality as a culture upon the public sphere. . . . A minority has no right to take over public assets. Let the marchers kindly go back to their individual closets. And let them do it without whining, because no one interferes with their affairs in there. Let them give up their attempts at takeovers, and leave the public sphere to normal people. . . ." Feiglin added in an additional post: "I have no problem with homosexuals, most of whom are, most likely, good and talented people and no one wants to interfere in their private lives. I have a problem with homosexuality as a culture. This culture subverts the status of the family. And without the family there is no nation, and without a nation there is no civilization."
Feiglin refused to meet with a gay faction within the Likud, and was quoting as stating: "As individuals I can’t tell them how to lead their lives and I can cooperate with them on different subjects, but as a group that tries to promote an ideology of their sexual orientation, I don’t think they have legitimacy, especially not in the Likud." On Feb. 7, 2013, Feiglin met with an Israeli gay advocacy group in Tel Aviv, and said he was no longer a homophobe. News accounts of the meeting reported Feiglin's views: "'I am in favor of you having all your human rights, but I am not prepared by the way to invalidate the special value of the classic family', he said and made it clear that he still opposed gay marriage and same-sex parenting. 'Every child in the world has a right to a mother and father. It has nothing to do with religion, but with my basic perception of the good of the child', he said."
After his election to the Knesset, Moshe Feiglin met with homosexual groups. Although he does not identify with their lifestyle choices, he told them, he supports their rights as individuals and will fight to ensure that those rights are upheld.
When asked by a lesbian supporter if he would support her running in the primaries for the Zehut party, Feiglin was enthusiastically positive about it.
When the Jerusalem city government voted to permit sex-segregated public buses, according to the wishes of some ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews, Feiglin supported the action: "I see discrimination against women as despicable. But it is unreasonable to force an ultra-Orthodox bus company to institute mixed seating on its buses against the wishes of its customers." Feiglin also opposes the Israeli army's decision to allow women into combat units.
The Times of Israel reported that the post was subsequently removed by Facebook. Explaining the removal, Facebook stated: “The post was removed because its content mocks the victims, which goes against our policy." Feiglin confirmed the removal of his post via his official Facebook account, claiming to "stand behind every word"
Haaretz reported that while being interviewed by Channel 12 about the Gaza war in June 2024, Feiglin quoted Adolf Hitler stating that Israelis "cannot live in this land if one Islamo-Nazi remains in Gaza." He continued stating that he wanted to "turn Gaza Hebrew" as Jews were "not guests in our own land; it is entirely ours."
In May 2025, during an appearance on Channel 14, Feiglin defended Israel from claims that too many children had been killed in collateral damage, saying: "The enemy is not Hamas, nor is it the military wing of Hamas ... Every child in Gaza is the enemy. We need to occupy Gaza and settle it, and not a single Gazan child will be left there. There is no other victory."
Political career
Manhigut Yehudit
Likud
Views and opinions
time index 2:10 and would not be on the top of his agenda as Prime Minister. Rather, Feiglin's focus is on reforming Israel as an essentially Jewish State by acting on several campaigns on the religious, social, legal, and security fronts.
Published works
Controversy and criticism
Comments on Arabs
Hitler comments
Banned from Britain
Oslo Accords
Likud members
Support for Jonathan Pollard
Criticism of U.S. Vice President Biden
Support for cannabis legalization
Approach to homosexuals
Women
Christians and Christianity
Petition by "Scholars for Israel and Palestine"
Comments following the 2020 Beirut explosion
You don’t actually believe this was some disorganized fuel depot, right? You do realize that this inferno was supposed to land on us as a rain of rockets? ... Today is Tu B'Av, a day of joy, and a true and huge thank you to G-d and all the geniuses and heroes really (!) who organized for us this wonderful celebration in honor of the day of love.
Comments during the Gaza war
External links
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Where There are No Men: Zo Artzeinu's Struggle Against the Post-Zionism Collapse at Wayback Machine
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