MK Dr. Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) is suing the Israel Women's Lobby for slandering his name in the media by accusing him of anti-female bias last month. The freshman MK filed a lawsuit with the Jerusalem Magistrates Court on Sunday morning, demanding an award of a quarter of a million shekels in damages. He is also demanding that the court force the Women's Lobby to publish a retraction of the "libelous statement" and an apology wherever the accusations or implications appeared.
"It would not have been as bad," Ben-Ari's lawsuit stated, "if the defendants – who fired the arrow – had taken back what they said, had tried to rectify matters, publish accurate information, or at least [tried] to behave in good faith toward the complainant. However, besides the fact that this affair involves harsh acts of defamation and humiliation, it shows how far certain organizations and activists are willing to go in order to receive air time, even if they have to twist and falsify the truth to that end.”
The confrontation between MK Ben-Ari and the influential non-governmental organization began when Ben-Ari refused to support a bill that the group had been advancing, doubling the allowable maternity leave to six months, albeit without pay. Ben-Ari voted against the measure and explained why he was doing so from the Knesset podium, saying he believed the bill would hurt women's chances of employment more than it would help them.
As an illustration of his point, he gave an imaginary scenario in which an employer barely capable of managing without a valued female employee was suddenly faced with her absence for six months. Such an employer might simply avoid taking female employees in the future, Ben-Ari warned.
In a sharp response, the women's rights group filed a complaint against MK Ben-Ari to the Knesset's Ethics Committee, accusing him of incitement against women. “Ben-Ari spoke in a way that was crude and dissonant, shamelessly and fearlessly, in a way that incites to clear discrimination against women,” the Israel Women's Lobby said.
The Knesset Ethics Committee threw out the complaint by the women's advocacy group, criticizing it for publishing its contents in the media before it was debated in the committee and saying that such issues are not decided in the court of public opinion.
'Silencing Their Voices'
The women's group issued a statement on Sunday in response to Ben-Ari's lawsuit, stating that the MK was avoiding the issue raised by the women's rights advocacy group. Instead of dealing with public criticism of his position, the group said, Ben-Ari had chosen to "silence the voices of working women in Israel."