Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded Tuesday afternoon to an incident in which a female protester interrupted a speech he gave in Kiryat Shmona and he told her that he found her "boring."
After the woman screamed that it was a "sad day" in protest against the closure of an emergency room in the north, Netanyahu told her: "Look, you’re simply uninteresting. You’re boring us. We want to discuss things that interest us. Come back when you have something interesting to say.”
Netanyahu defended his remarks as a response to the disrespect he felt following the passing of his attorney and friend Yaakov Weinroth.
"This morning, a political activist interrupted my speech at the inauguration ceremony of the medical center in Petah Tikva," Netanyahu wrote on Twitter. "It was only a few hours after I was informed of the death of my soulmate, attorney Yaakov Weinroth."
“I’m used to criticism and I have no problem with heckling,” Netanyahu added. “But today, in deep sorrow and grief, I felt that it simply was not appropriate.”
The Prime Minister's office accused the heckler of "crossing all moral and human lines" in interrupting Netanyahu when he was speaking about Weinroth.
“We are talking about a woman who interrupted the prime minister, including when he wanted to talk about Yaakov Weinroth. The woman shouted ‘Sad day,’ and the prime minister responded that indeed it is a sad day due to Yaakov Weinroth’s death, but unfortunately she decided to interrupt him anyway," the PMO stated.
Netanyahu's office added that he "doesn’t normally respond like that to people who interrupt his speeches, but she crossed all moral and human lines when she chose to interrupt while he was speaking about Weinroth’s death. That interruption while he wanted to talk about his friend hurt the prime minister very much."
Opposition MKs claimed that Netanyahu's remarks show that he does not care about ordinary Israelis.
Zionist Union leader Avi Gabbay told News 10 that "the role of public figures is to listen and fix what is needed. It’s really not boring."
Zionist Union MK Amir Peretz said “They bore him — the citizens. Even those who elect him. How much can you bug him about rubbish such as lines for doctor’s appointments? About reasonably priced housing? About reasonably priced groceries? That bores him. It doesn’t interest him.
“The only interesting thing is what they wrote about him, what they said about him, who is with him and who is against him."