Some of the weirdest moments in Israeli Parliamentary Knesset history, as first compiled by Haaretz Newspaper (parliamentarians are MKs):
April 2003: MK Roman Bronfman to MK Shlomo Benizri, “Shut up, because you are stupid and heartless.” In a subsequent apology, Bronfman writes: “I should have refrained from expressing myself in this manner even though the target was a person like MK Benizri.”
February 2007: MK Moshe Sharoni states in an interview that he would like female parliamentary assistants to wear bird-shaped brooches “because they are like birds – either they put out or they flutter away.”
March 1979: Chief of staff Rafael Eitan and Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek are photographed fast asleep in the VIP gallery as U.S. president Jimmy Carter addresses the Knesset.
March 2004: MK Yoram Marciano files a complaint against himself to the Ethics Committee, claiming he failed to uphold the honor of the Knesset and the MKs when he got drunk in a nightclub, scuffled with security guards and threatened to bring in a buddy from the underworld.
March 2003: After being suspected of voting twice on the state budget – once in his name and once in the name of MK Inbal Gavrieli – MK Yehiel Hazan takes the electronic voting panel out of the Knesset storeroom, stuffs it into a plastic bag and hightails it out of the building.
June 1993: An Italian visitor to the Knesset leaps from the visitors gallery into the chamber and is caught in the sturdy arms of MK Haim Dayan.
Tags: Embarrassment, government, israel, political