Yesh Atid Chairman MK Yair Lapid accused MK Oren Hazan (Likud) of mocking the disability of MK Karin Elharar (Yesh Atid) in last night's vote on the Enlistment Law, after doing so a week earlier as well.
According to Lapid and Elharar, Elharar, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, initially asked MK Isawi Frej (Meretz) to press her voting button at the plenum, during the votes on the state budget last week. Hazan saw Frej voting twice and accused him of a double vote, which is a criminal offense.
A storm of shouting erupted and quieted down when Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein (Likud) said that he grants Frej permission to vote for Elharar.
Hazan denies the incident, and wrote on Facebook Tuesday: "Since the Left and parts of the media are trying to lie and libel, here is the truth in all its glory: I never spoke to MK Elharar and said the things that were written about me, this is a total lie.
"As a person who spent two-thirds of his life in hospitals and as a brother of a disabled IDF veteran, I have never, God forbid, mocked any disability she or anyone else has. Anyone who knows me knows it is light years away from me, and as much as they try to blame me for this, it will not catch because it is simply untrue."
What really happened, he said, is that "during the budget votes, while MK Elharar was distracted by something, MK Frej voted in her stead. The video of the double vote was sent to me by the journalist Yosi Atar, who exposed it, and I sent it onward to the Knesset Speaker and the Prime Minister. For some reason, MKs from the Left chose to present this as though I was attacking MK Elharar, who is disabled, and not MK Frej, who voted twice.
"Yesterday, too, when I asked in the plenum where Frej is, the media decided to plant words in my mouth that I never said, against MK Elharar, who I respect very much," said Hazan.