MK Feiglin Links Oslo, Divorced Fathers' Suicide

MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu) pointed to a connection, this week, between the Oslo process and an attack on basic identities in Israel, with family identity first and foremost among these.

Replying to questions from divorced fathers' rights activists at a conference in the Bnei Brak branch of Likud on Sunday, Feiglin said that together with the attack on the Land of Israel in the early 90s, extremist elements also attacked the most basic identity – that of the family unit.

This attack, he explained, begins with an offensive against men – who are “the family,” in his words – and continues from there to attack women, who are “the home.”

The attack on the family unit is therefore connected to the systemic victimization of divorced and divorcing men, he said. He committed to take action to correct this wrong.

On Monday, Feiglin took to his Facebook page and wrote a status in which he mentioned the suicide of a divorced father, Alon Wolf, who had been separated from his daughter for a very long time.

"Again a divorced father has committed suicide,” he wrote. “This time, one whom I knew.”

"On our way to demolish the value of the family, we have turned fathers into cardboard targets. The rate of suicide among divorced fathers is the highest in the country, far greater than for any other group. There are more 'contact centers' (a prettified term for a place where fathers meet their children behind bars) in Israel than in the US. We have forgotten the commandment, 'respect your father and your mother' – Yes, your mother, too.

"Because at the end of the day, when you take a child's father away from him, the mother is also erased.”

Fathers' activists who were present at the meeting with MK Feiglin emerged from it with mixed feelings. They were buoyed by his words and promises, but disappointed that he did not declare them a clear plan of action.