MK says ‘retarded’ after initiating bill to ban the word

MK Itzik Shmuli used the word “retarded” in a pejorative manner to describe the State of Israel’s infrastructure, contradicting the spirit, if not the letter, of a bill he initiated last month that would ban the word’s use in state documents.

“The retarded infrastructure here is unbelievable. A few drops [of rain], and a man finds his death in a frightening and unnecessary manner,” Shmuli tweeted Tuesday. He was referring to the death by hypothermia of a man who was trapped in his car on a flooded underpass in Haifa last week.

After Shmuli’s Twitter followers accused him of contradicting the bill he proposed last month, he responded by saying that his bill doesn’t ban the use of the word but, rather, calls for its removal from official documents.

“Leave it, it’s really inappropriate to joke about this… and to remind you, the bill never bans the use of the word (certainly not for those who are silent), it calls for the word’s removal from the state statute book,” Shmuli retorted in a followup tweet.

The bill, which passed an initial reading in the Knesset in November, dictates that the word “retarded” be replaced with “an individual or individuals who are developmentally disabled” in all state legal documents, due to the word’s pejorative and potentially offensive connotation.

“In our world, language creates reality,” Shmuli said last month in explaining the proposal. “‘Retarded’ is a an offensive term, which expresses an individual’s lack of ability. As a special-needs teacher, I’ve seen how, in one instant, a child’s self-confidence can be deflated by other children who use shameful terms like that to describe them.”