Parliamentary aides’ debate descends to name-calling

Aides spar over housing debate after two Kadima officials hold bipartisan conference to discuss solutions to current crisis.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Knesset session 311 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Knesset session 311
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Parliamentary aides sparred over the housing debate on Wednesday after two Kadima aides called a bipartisan conference to discuss solutions to the current crisis.
The meeting heated up after Likud MK Carmel Shama-Hacohen’s aide, Livnat Nizri, criticized the event’s organizers, Kadima MK Avi Dichter’s aides Oren Lavi and Nissan Ze’evi, for releasing a statement saying all aides opposed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s reforms.
“Your behavior is unfair. If Likud aides released a statement saying there was a parliamentary aide tour to [the settlement of] Tekoa, all the bleeding hearts would cry about it,” Nizri said.
An aide for MK Nino Abesadze (Kadima) responded by saying: “Who do you think you are, frecha (bimbo)?”
“The meeting had strong political undertones,” chairman of the Parliamentary Aides’ Committee and aide to Coalition chairman MK Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) Roni Tzuberi said. “The opposition and coalition argued the whole time; it was provocative and harsh.”
Prior to the meeting, Lavi opened a Faceboook group and sent a letter to all aides encouraging them to “break out of the Matrix,” referring to the science-fiction film about a world in which the heroes escape a virtual reality forced upon them.
“We symbolize more than anyone else the growing frustration of the middle classes,” Lavi wrote. “We are academics, with a respectable job, abnormal working hours, but full of motivation to succeed – and still, our situation is no different from those sitting in tents in Tel Aviv, Beersheba, Kiryat Shmona, Haifa, Holon and other places.”
“Citizens of Israel are slowly waking up from the Matrix they lived in, and it’s time we did, too. We are all in the same heavy, sinking ship,” Lavi added.