Blue and White MK Pnina Tamano-Shata is weighing filing a police complaint against far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir after he allegedly accosted her in the Knesset on Monday evening, coming up close to her and calling her “fucked up and stupid.”
Speaking with The Times of Israel on Tuesday, Tamano-Shata said that the incident occurred after she confronted the ultranationalist minister in the back of the Knesset plenum regarding the recent arrests of two children of Ethiopian descent.
“Immediately he started saying to me, ‘Go away, you fucking idiot, you dumbhead, what is this?’ Then he came close to me and touched his nose to my face. I told him, ‘Move away from me, get lost, move away from me.’ Then he said, ‘The entire Ethiopian community hates you.’ Totally insane. Really a bully, a real bully,” she said.
She said she was going to file an Ethics Committee complaint and possibly a police complaint as well.
While not caught on camera, the incident was witnessed by lawmakers, with fellow Blue and White lawmaker Alon Schuster tweeting that such “bullying” is “what it looks like when the extremists take over the discourse.” The incident was also condemned by party chairman Benny Gantz, who declared that such behavior was unacceptable and incompatible with Ben Gvir’s Orthodox religious identity.
Over the past week, Tamano-Shata has become a vocal advocate on behalf of two 12-year old boys of Ethiopian origin who were arrested outside their Jerusalem school last Sunday in connection with an alleged rock throwing incident over Yom Kippur.
According to Hebrew media reports, the boys were held for hours without food and police took several hours to notify one of the boy’s parents, prompting Ben Gvir to order Police Commissioner Daniel Levy to look into the incident.
However, Tamano-Shata says that the issue has not been resolved quickly enough, “traumatizing” the children involved.
Addressing lawmakers from the rostrum following the alleged confrontation, Ben Gvir denounced Tamano-Shata for “taking advantage” of one of the detained children in order to score political points by parading him around the Knesset without feeding him while telling everyone he had a criminal record.
“She hung around with him for four hours, took advantage of him – and didn’t even give him a piece of bread,” he declared, stating that he had taken it upon himself to feed the child last Monday, when Tamano-Shata had brought him and his mother to the Knesset National Security Committee.
Tamano-Shata was removed from the committee after confronting Ben Gvir about the issue, declaring that the police “harm Ethiopian Israeli children every day,” with 30,000 cases against members of the community opened since 2019.
She later accused Ben Gvir of refusing to listen to her or the boy’s mother.
Ascending the rostrum after Ben Gvir on Monday, Tamano-Shata appeared to be barely holding back tears as she described the minister’s actions toward her and the difficulties in “representing a community that is daily victimized by racism.”
The Ethiopian community has long charged authorities with discriminatory legal treatment. In 2019, the community held major protests over the fatal shooting of a community member by an off-duty police officer. In 2015, a large demonstration in support of the Ethiopian community and against police brutality and racism turned violent, leading to massive unrest at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square.
Speaking with The Times of Israel in 2020, Aweke “Kobi” Zena, at the time the coordinator of the Justice Ministry’s National Anti-Racism Unit, said that despite improvements in recent years, police weren’t doing enough to combat systemic racism.
Ethiopians are arrested for crimes at a rate that is twice their representation in Israeli society, according to a 2022 report by the Association of Ethiopian Jews.
“I went up and really broke down from his behavior and went up and cried,” Tamano-Shata told The Times of Israel on Tuesday. “I’m going to the Ethics Committee to file a complaint, but not only that. I’m also considering filing a police complaint because he touched me, which he is not allowed to do. I’m also considering suing him for defamation [because] he said that I starved the child.”
Asked about the incident, a spokesman for Ben Gvir issued the following statement:
“MK Pnina Tamano-Shata exploited a child from the Ethiopian community, exposed him to cameras, and told everyone that he had a criminal record, effectively ruining his life. She spent four hours walking around the Knesset with him while he was hungry and didn’t even take care of him. The minister took the child to his office, gave him food and drink, and contacted the police commissioner to find out how they could help the child. Tamano-Shata must understand that some things are simply not done, even for likes.”
The spokesman did not respond to a follow-up question regarding Tamano-Shata’s intent to file an ethics complaint.
