Noa Rothman
Noa RothmanHadas Parush/Flash 90

MK Nurit Koren (Likud) on Monday criticized the speech given by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's granddaughter, Noa Rothman, at the memorial service for her grandfather on Mount Herzl.

In her speech, Rothman verbally attacked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and accused “a spokeswoman at the Prime Minister's Office” of publishing a picture of her grandfather with former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat with the word “traitor”.

Rothman was actually referring to a tweet by Jerusalem Post writer Caroline Glick. Netanyahu later responded to Rothman, clarifying that the tweet was not posted by a person whose salary is paid by taxpayers and stressing that he is renouncing the contents of the tweet.

"Unfortunately, Rabin's grandchildren are creating provocation at a state ceremony and are making cheap and cynical use of their grandfather's memory by uttering baseless incitement," Koren told Arutz Sheva on Monday.

"Words have power, and the fact that they are allowed to speak because of the family connection does not mean that they are permitted to divide and incite. I have served as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and I have participated in many ceremonies in memory of the country's leaders, and there is never any applause anywhere. The fact that the crowd applauded after Noa's speech only shows that there was a provocation here, perhaps because we are before elections," she continued, calling on Rabin's family to show responsibility in the future.

"It is not my place to say whether they should be permitted to speak at the memorial ceremony. I understand their grief over their grandfather who was taken away, but it has been 23 years and they have no right to come and incite the people and use terrible expressions and warn that there will be another murder here,” said Koren.

"Why take it to extremes instead of to reconciliation and moderation? The fact that the Prime Minister is present at the memorial does not give them legitimacy to say such things."