Yifat Kariv
Yifat KarivNati Shohat/Flash 90

MK Yifat Kariv (Yesh Atid) left many shaking their heads last week when she made the following claim on her Facebook page: "over 3.2 million students are victims to bullying."

There's just one problem with the assertion - the figure is almost 50% than the number of students in Israel.

According to Knesset figures published last April from the 2012-2013 academic year, Israel has 2.01 million students, of whom nearly half-a-million were kindergarteners.

Kariv's post came in the context of online bullying, but her statement still begs the question: where did the additional 1.2 million students come from? And who is perpetrating the bullying if all students are victims?

In the same post, Kariv continued by writing "girls are exposed to bullying online twice as much as boys."

"Fatty, murderer, go kill yourself, retard, go die - these are just a small portion of the petitions I receive each day on the topic of online bullying," continued the MK.

While reporting on a Knesset discussion she had initiated about the issue of online bullying, Kariv called for Justice Minister Tzipi Livni (Hatnua) to sign on to the Budapest Convention on cybercrime.

Regardless of Kariv's factual faux-pas, the issue of bullying in Israel has been raised as a serious topic requiring attention, and has been brought up by President Reuven Rivlin on several occasions.