National Unity MK tears up as she blasts government: ‘You’ve destroyed the country’

Opposition lawmaker Orit Farkash-Hacohen breaks into tears at the Knesset rostrum, charging that the coalition is ruining Israel.

“Our country is on fire. You’ve destroyed the country, you’ve destroyed society,” Farkash-Hacohen declares, saying that the government’s hard-right policies have turned Israel from “the high-tech nation into an international leper… I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I can’t believe it.”

In the week of Tisha B’Av, when the Jews mourn the destruction of the two ancient Temples as a consequence of internal feuding and intolerance, she warns “we will destroy the third home [the modern state of Israel] because of internal hatred.”

The National Unity lawmaker served as science and technology minister until she returned to the opposition benches in December.

This is a “government of anarchists,” she says. “You think in the name of democracy you are entitled to unlimited power.”

Farkash-Hacohen says that the coalition’s policies reflect what she says are its priorities: “Power, money, and honor.”

“Like in a bad movie,” she says, “this government is passing another corrupt piece of legislation.” Farkash-Hacohen goes through a list of coalition and cabinet initiatives that she says hurt the economy, women, election integrity, social cohesion, and security.

“We’ve never had such a government that embarrasses us a million times a day,” Farkash-Hacohen says, adding: “There’s no end to the low points.”

השרה לשעבר וחברת הכנסת אורית פרקש הכהן פורצת בבכי במליאת הכנסת: "העם שלנו כואב. העם פצוע. הוא צריך שקט וחמלה. אם אתם לא מבינים את זה – אתם לא ראויים לעם הזה. זו ממשלה של אנרכיסטים"@DaphnaLiel pic.twitter.com/9lg3bveRAw

— החדשות – N12 (@N12News) July 23, 2023