Lapid calls on Netanyahu to condemn Likud MK’s purported homophobic remarks

Prime Minister Yair Lapid calls on prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn Likud MK Shlomo Karhi for purported homophobic comments he made in the Knesset.

During a heated exchange  in the Knesset plenum, Karhi shouts at Yesh Atid MKs Michal Shir and Yorai Lahav-Hertzano that “with you guys there are no men and women — everyone is Mrs., that’s your ideology.”

Shir retorts: “You have something against the LGBT community? Come out and say it.” Karhi shouts back toward Shir and Lahav-Hertzano: “How should I address you, as Mrs. or Mr.?”

Lahav-Hertzano, who is gay, shouts back angrily: “You should call me Mr.”

Karhi then asks the same question of Labor MK Gilad Kariv, a Reform rabbi, who retorts: “Don’t call me anything.”

Lapid calls on Netanyahu to “immediately condemn the primitive and homophobic comments by Shlomo Karhi toward MK Lahav-Hertzano. This stain is also on your head and on the entire Likud movement.”

In response, Karhi calls Lapid “a liar and a cheat” and claims that he was not asking Lahav-Hertzano, but was only addressing his question to Shir and Kariv.