‘You need hospitalization,’ Likud MK lashes out at deputy coalition whip
David Amsalem’s remark to Boaz Toporovsky at Knesset Arrangements Committee meeting comes day after another opposition MK told coalition whip Silman to answer ‘like a good girl’
Strong verbal clashes continued in the Knesset’s Arrangements Committee on Tuesday, with a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party again hurling abuse at a coalition official over allegedly silencing opposition voices.
“You need hospitalization,” Likud MK David Amsalem shouted at deputy coalition whip Boaz Toporovsky (Yesh Atid), a day after Likud’s Miki Zohar made a sexist comment to coalition whip, Idit Silman (Yamina) telling her to answer him “like a good girl.”
Tuesday’s incident happened during an Arrangements Committee discussion in which opposition members accused Toporovsky of failing to let them voice their opinion and being overheavy in handing out warnings.
When Amsalem was called out for the second time — three warnings result in the lawmaker being removed from the meeting — he started shouting at Toporovsky: “You are a disgrace, a pile of garbage, an embarrassment to the Knesset.”
Amsalem was then handed his third warning and taken outside by guards.
Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz later slammed Amsalem’s words about hospitalization, calling them “a new low” and saying they contribute to the stigmatizing of mental illness.
“Another offensive use of psychiatric terms,” Horowitz tweeted. “In Israel people aren’t hospitalized because their opinions or behaviors annoy someone. Hospitalization is for treating a psychiatric disorder. Stop insulting the patients. I will fight the stigma regarding mental illness.”
Right-wing pundit Erel Segal responded on Twitter by sharing a quote from an interview Horowitz gave in March to the Haaretz daily, in which he called a journalist “retarded.”
Horowitz had made the comment in response to a question about pro-Netanyahu pundit Avishai Ben Haim, who had negatively highlighted the fact that both leaders of left-wing parties Meretz and Labor — Horowitz and Merav Michaeli — have no children.
Amsalem’s comments came a day after Silman was attacked by Likud faction chair MK Miki Zohar, who had entered a meeting late and demanded to be updated on what he had missed.
Told by Silman to ask his colleagues sitting next to him rather than interrupt the proceedings, Zohar said, “Who are you anyway? Answer like a good girl.”
“I won’t answer you ‘like a good girl,'” Silman shot back. “You came late… and yet you disrupt the committee. You should be ashamed, Miki Zohar.”
Later on during the meeting, Zohar apologized to Silman for his comment, saying it came “in the heat of the moment.”
Lawmakers from the coalition, including Blue and White’s Pnina Tamano-Shata and Labor’s Ram Shefa, condemned the remark as “chauvinism.”
Zohar’s comments came just days after MK Meir Porush, from the opposition United Torah Judaism party, called Silman “a little girl.” “Don’t call me a little girl, I’m not a little girl,” she fired back at Porush during last week’s heated committee meeting.
Responding Monday to Zohar’s comments, Silman said on Twitter that the “kindergarten tactics” being used against her were not random and were part of “a clear method with a guiding hand.”
Silman has been the target of threats over the last month, as some on the right have accused her and the rest of the Yamina party of betraying the right by forming a unity government to oust Benjamin Netanyahu after 12 years of rule.
The Times of Israel Community.