Leadership and Vision

Moshe Feiglin
Manhigut Yehudit
12 Marchesvan 5771
20 October '10

As part of its Yitzchak Rabin memorial project, Ma'ariv's NRG website asked Moshe Feiglin to write an article to analyze if there are any leaders or potential leaders in Israel today who can match Rabin's "leadership and charisma." The following is Moshe Feiglin's essay, translated from Hebrew.

It is difficult to separate reality from myth. We build myths to serve our needs in the present. But in no time at all the myths turn into historical fact that defies challenge.

Our natural yearning for real leadership creates the myth of the leaders of the past. But the truth is that the only real leader that the State of Israel has known was David Ben Gurion.

I do not know where Ben Gurion is right now – in heaven or in hell. Ben Gurion, the schemer who crushed anyone in his way, the man responsible for the Saison and the Altalena, who handed his brothers over to the enemy and weaved a small civil war against them to consolidate his power – was also Ben Gurion the private who understood military strategy better than all the generals, the man who truly built the IDF and without whose learning ability, perseverance and historical vision – we would clearly not have a state today.

In other words, I am certainly not a big admirer of Ben Gurion – but the man truly was a leader. I cannot say that of any other leader who came after him. Not even of Menachem Begin, toward whom I feel much more amity.

Many fine and talented people have led our state. Some contributed more and some less. But they were not true leaders. The reason for that is simple: They lacked the most basic requirement of any leader: Vision. The most experienced driver who does not know what his destination is should really leave the driving to a less experienced person who knows where he wants to go.

Ben Gurion was a leader, not only because of his personality but first and foremost because his goal was clear and simple: To turn the Jewish settlement in Israel into a sovereign state. If he had come into power ten years later, it is doubtful that he would have been able to fully express his leadership potential. The goal, the destiny, the vision – are what leadership is made of – not the opposite.

The leaders who succeeded the first prime minister no longer enjoyed the advantage of having a clear and simple existential goal from which to draw their leadership. They provided maintenance for Israel's existence and ignored its destiny. But as the State's physical existence – military and economic - solidified, the need for a vision outside Israel's sovereign, physical existence became clear. Israel's leaders have preferred to flee this vision. This makes them 'non-leaders.'

(Read full article)

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