Posted March 10 2008 by Tzioni
Too Hot for the UK: Britain Bans Head of Jewish Leadership
Moshe Feiglin, president of the Manhigut Yehudit (Jewish Leadership) faction of the Israeli Likud Party, recently received a letter from Britain’s Home Secretary notifying him that he is banned from entering the UK. This came as a bit of a surprise to Mr. Feiglin, who apparently had no intention of visiting the UK in the first place!
According to British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s office, Feiglin is barred from Britain because his presence would not be “conducive to the public good.” Why? The Secretary’s letter explains that Feiglin engaged in “unacceptable behaviour” by “propagat[ing] views which foment and provoke others to serious criminal acts and also foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.” Or, in other words, he published some articles a number of years ago advocating that harsh measures be taken against Arab terrorists and their supporters.
Ironically, one of the four examples of Feiglin’s “unacceptable” statements cited in Smith’s letter was actually taken from the writings Claude Scudamore Jarvis, the British Governor of the Sinai during the Mandate period. In an interview with Israel National Radio’s Yishai Fleisher on Monday, Feiglin joked that he was being banned from Britain for quoting a British official.
But the absurdity emanating from Londonistan doesn’t end there. Just recently, the British government granted permission to Ibrahim Mousawwi, chief foreign news editor for Hezb’allah’s Al-Manar television station in Lebanon, to visit the country. Yes, that’s right. One of Hezb’allah’s chief propagandists, whose TV station regularly broadcasts anti-Semitic propaganda (e.g. a miniseries “documentary” based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion), is allowed into the UK, but Moshe Feiglin, who hasn’t even expressed an interest in going there, was singled out and banned for “fostering hatred.”
Feiglin appears to be taking this incident in stride. He told journalists that he is proud to be among the ranks of other heroic Israeli leaders and generals who were similarly prevented from entering the UK: Menachem Begin, Yitzchak Shamir, and Doron Almog. In his response to the British Secretary, Mr. Feiglin wrote, “[I]n the moral situation your nation has deteriorated to, I have no other choice but to view your letter as a great compliment. I am unworthy of the honor you have given me, including me in the dignified list of people like (former Prime Minister) Menachem Begin in the past) – and senior IDF officers in the present.” (Attila Somfalvi, “Feiglin Banned from Entering UK,” Ynetnews.com, 3/10/08, available at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3517462,00.html).
According to YNet’s report, Mr. Feiglin had some choice words for the British Home Secretary: “With the direction you are deteriorating to, I believe that if I ever wish to visit England in the future, I would be forced to submit my request in your official language – Arabic.”
Conspiracy?
Moshe Feiglin is a bit of a controversial figure. In 1993, Feiglin led “Zu Artzeinu,” a large grassroots civil-disobedience movement against the Oslo Accords. His movement ultimately helped elect then-opposition leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu on an anti-Oslo platform. (Netanyahu proceeded on the disastrous path of Oslo anyway, ceding, among other things, Israel’s 2nd holiest city, Hevron.) Feiglin, along with co-activist Shmuel Sackett, was later convicted of sedition for his civil disobedience activities. His sentence was commuted to six months of community service. After this period of “rehabilitation,” Feiglin and Sackett co-founded Manhigut Yehudit, a faction within the Likud with the goal of taking over the leadership of the party. In 2005, when Moshe Feiglin came in 3rd in the Likud primaries, Bibi Netanyahu tried to bar him from serving in the Knesset by changing the party’s bylaws to exclude “anyone who has served three or more months in prison.” The Likud’s election committee, however, reaffirmed Feiglin’s ability to run because his crimes (the Zu Artzeinu protests) did not involve “moral turpitude.” Nevertheless, Netanyahu remains committed to expelling Feiglin from the party and distancing himself from the man he considers too right-wing for the Likud.
In the last Likud primary, in 2007, Feiglin received 23.5% of the vote, coming in second to Benjamin Netanyahu for the party’s chairman.
The outrageous treatment of an Israeli official by the UK is not in and of itself surprising. What is particularly troubling about this incident is that the letter from the British Home Office did not come as a response to any expressed desire to visit the UK or to any particular recent event. Is it regular British protocol to scour the old writings of foreign politicians? Or did someone tip them off? Someone, perhaps, interested in portraying Feiglin as an extremist right-winger in contrast to the centrist Netanyahu?
Whether there is any validity to this conjecture or not, Feiglin stands in good company with the likes of Menachem Begin, who was also viewed as too right-wing by the Israeli establishment of his time. One day down the road though, Feiglin’s detractors should remember, he became that establishment…
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