Speaking to a packed crowd at a gala Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Independence Day) dinner under the Manhegut Yehudit -- “Jewish Leadership” -- banner at the still-elegant Terrace on the Park, Queens, up and coming Knesset member Moshe Feiglin, conservative candidate for the next prime ministership of Israel, said some surprising things as well as recommitting to Israel in ways the majority of Jews (and non-anti-Semites), support.

Feiglin followed the smashing firebrand Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who could not have been more powerful in jet-pack-fueled support for Israel.

Speaking directly after the incandescent Bachmann, who tore the place up with her knowledge of history and security needs of the state now 66 years young, the slim, sharp-featured Feiglin spoke both live and with a custom tape on his year in Knesset.

Unusual among his foci, Feiglin championed the monitored use of medical marijuana to alleviate nausea and discomfort for sufferers of advanced diseases. He comes to this issue via his wife, suffering from Parkinson’s. Israel is globally acknowledged as a powerhouse of advanced medicine. Some questioned his inclusion of this topic among the many existential demands of the state. That was one surprise; the topic elicits controversy in the U.S., hotly engaged in state by state referenda on pot legalization.

He spoke about the need to adjudicate and punish those regimes that actually ‘sacrifice’ prisoners or other ‘political undesirables’ to relieve them of their organs. One example: unconscionably harvested organs from the Falun Gong and convicts (China); the same in North Korea.  This championing meets with universal agreement.

Knesset member Feiglin provided further grist for prime ministerial speculation by addressing the potential for redirecting government expenditures now going toward massive infrastructural defense. Bibi is reputedly “afraid” of Feiglin’s growing public. Feiglin suggested monies for incentivizing the 1.7 million Arab/Palestinian Arab segment of Israel to ‘self-deport’ via cash awards.

As controversial as this is, more controversial is his effort to wrest control of the Temple Mount from the Wakf, which drives the Arabs daffy. He has a 5-step program for incorporating Judea and Samaria: He does not value a 2-state “solution.” Though this cash-incenting solution is hardly likely, he thinks along lines the U.S. President and subaltern, Secretary of State John Kerry, seem not to envision. He sees their desperation to divest Israel of defensible borders and vast swaths of land it needs. 

The population of the tiny “start-up nation” that could is now at a remarkable 8.1 million, starting in 1948 from half a million starved refugees from the cauldrons of Nazi Europe. Feiglin predicted that a new ‘wave’ of immigrants would be arriving from Middle Eastern countries increasingly hostile to their knots of longtime resident Jews, as well as from hotspots in Ukraine, Crimea, and formerly Soviet states where Jews have  been targeted as release pistons for the expansionist resurgent hegemon Vlad Putin.

Not forgotten, France under the current onslaught of resident Muslim aggression, violence, and uncontrolled murder, is a major source of disaffected Jews fleeing intolerable anti-Jewish assaults and delinquencies by North African Muslim newcomers. Thousands of French Jews have already fled. 

Feiglin puts the number of new arrivals during coming years to one million. He suggested that Israel remains open for all Jews to “return home”—“There’s room for all.” 

Another interesting nugget:   Israel should stop accepting foreign aid, which costs Israel in PR negatives. Bonus -- many Americans might welcome this cut.

Both emphasized the folly of yielding one centimeter of land ”for peace,” since Israel has won all aggressions waged against it; winners don’t yield endlessly to sue for peace. “Winners gets the land. Losers are supposed to give -- the peace,” Feiglin puckishly projected.

He notes with some asperity that the vaunted Oslo Accords, the 1993 Clinton initiative that heralded a new cooperation between the parties, has, 21 years and counting, cost Israel more than a Trillion shekels — billions in dollars -- in defensive measures, guards for every drugstore and cafeteria, defensive barriers, reciprocal payback, weapons-smuggling tunnel-finding, tough measures at airports and vehicular crossings. 

How would a comparable country -- say, Portugal -- manage with such defense expenditures? It wouldn’t. 

For a nation the size of Israel, on school globes undetectable without a magnifier, such oceanic expenditure is enormously burdensome.

Lawyer and fiscal whiz Bachmann -- impressive for 45 minutes without recourse to TelePrompter or notes -- and Feiglin’s talks were delivered in an atmosphere that Quakers would call “popcorn”— the audience popped up to applaud in sustained enthusiasm. Not least of this agreement was their uncompromising stance on Israel’s retaining, forever, the 40% of landmass that is Judea and Samaria (what history buffs recognize as the lingering, unfortunate British slur, “the West Bank”).

This audience, 250 strong, Orthodox men and women, lifelong defenders of Israel, didn’t have to be reminded of the 66-year aggression waged by antagonist neighbors and perennial whiners pocketing UNRWA ‘aid,’ Euros  and petroskank rials. These enemies stitch Israel with missiles and homemade bombs, road stoners, smuggled arms, and the coarse obscenity of misnamed “suicide bombers,” who glory in homicide and axe-butchery of infants and elderly in a parody of hateful “martyrdom.”

Coming in for considerable derision by both speakers was Obama flack Secretary of State John Kerry, whose Olympic ignorance of area history is matched only by his brusque arrogance. This situation with the shuttlebug Kerry, amassing frequent-flyers at a fast clip -- is echoed in the position of the president, equally inert historically yet bent on humiliating Israel.

Both speakers cited convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, incarcerated for decades, used by presidents as a bargaining chip to elicit Israeli acquiescence to useless agreements imposed from North American poohbahs. They urge spurning that one-card-monte trick.

Not everyone, including Pollard himself, plumps for release under Pyrrhic conditions.

Bachmann, staunchest Congressional support for Israel, may not go for the platinum ring in future contests. We would be well-served by her advent, however, were she to do so.

But Feiglin has groundswells of support in Israel and elsewhere. He seems to have a steely resolve in   bolstering those emergent issues and bread-and-butter concerns that translate into existential life for Israel. He is a contender when Netanyahu hangs up his hat. Jewish leadership demands a strong advocate, one who won’t buckle at the first foreign aid dangle or threat.

As staunch in commitment as the land is eternal.