Ben Gvir tells MK Gilad Kariv to ‘send regards to your friend Barghouti’ in Knesset clash

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir clashes with The Democrats MK Gilad Kariv during a Knesset committee debate over the death penalty bill, telling the opposition lawmaker to “send regards to your friend Barghouti,” referring to high-profile Palestinian terror convict Marwan Barghouti.

Legislation that would enact the death penalty for Palestinian terrorists passed its first reading in the Knesset last week, and is now being prepared in the National Security Committee for its second and third readings.

The two politicians start trading barbs after Kariv asserts that the far-right minister has “destroyed the national security of the State of Israel.”

“Murders, killings, car accidents, protection. Where is the ‘governance’?” Kariv shouts, using the minister’s frequent buzzword. “Parents are afraid of going outside with their children all across the country!”

He calls Ben Gvir and his associates “a bunch of clowns,” telling him to “go open a community theater in Kiryat Arba,” the West Bank settlement where Ben Gvir resides, before being booted from the meeting.

As security guards escort Kariv from the meeting room, Ben Gvir accuses him of supporting terrorism. “Go on opposing — [the bill] will pass, God willing. Send regards to your friend Barghouti,” he says.

Ben Gvir also levels accusations of terror sympathizing against Hadash-Ta’al MK Aida Touma-Sliman, after she tries to interrupt his comments to the committee.

“I know you are afraid that this law will be applied to your friends,” Ben Gvir says, to which Touma-Sliman retorts: “You support terrorism.”

MK Limor Son Har-Melech, a member of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party and sponsor of the death penalty bill, charges the Arab lawmaker with supporting terrorism herself, telling her to “go to the terrorists’ funerals, your martyrs.”

Touma-Sliman is also escorted out of the meeting as Ben Gvir taunts her by repeating the word barra, meaning “out” in Arabic. “Go to your terrorist friends,” he says.

The Public Defender’s Office, in a letter presented to the committee, opposes the death penalty bill, claiming the law will not deter terrorism.

“Many studies conducted around the world have not found that the death penalty has a deterrent effect, especially when we are talking about acts of murder against an ideological-terrorist backdrop,” the letter reads.