Yair Lapid
Yair LapidFlash 90

Journalist Tomer Avital complained to the Knesset Ethics Committee that Yair Lapid had blocked him from Facebook access, and that this prevented him from publicizing his criticisms of Lapid. According to Avital, Lapid blocked him a few months ago after he asked him publicly why he tends to ignore his questions.

"It is superfluous to add that I didn't curse, state misleading facts or promote any political debate over the substance of Lapid's Facebook statuses." wrote Avital.

He maintains that Lapid wishes to prevent criticism of his policies from emerging. "Blocking me does not just harm my work as a journalist, it also prevents those who are surfing Lapid's Facebook page from seeing that he ignores my questions and, more importantly, my criticisms of a member of Knesset's declarations."

Avital claims that Lapid should be a model of democracy but is acting in the opposite way. "Lapid's Facebook page, which is supervised by a team of publicly paid assistants, is supposed to be a prototype of democracy which would enable every person to conduct a conversation with the MK along with other citizens. In reality, this arbitrary blocking prevents this from happening.

"The digital arena of politicians could serve for a deep and fruitful discussion of issues. It is a shame that for some MK's it serves for self-glorification instead. It seems that Lapid does leave the belligerent criticism on his site while removing the more subtle and keener criticism."