A Likud lawmaker who was ejected from a Knesset committee hearing Sunday spoke out Sunday afternoon, rejecting insinuations he compared Israeli government policy to the Holocaust, while slamming coronavirus restrictions as human rights violations.
During a heated debate Sunday morning in the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, Gadi Yevarkan compared proposed restrictions on unvaccinated Israelis – including the expanded use of the ‘Green Pass’ system – unfavorably to lockdowns in Austria and Australia.
Yevarkan went on to say that “All that's missing are the concentration camps."
Committee chairman MK Gilad Kariv (Labor) then ordered Yevarkan removed from the hearing.
Following the incident, Yevarkan issued a statement blasting the government, singling out Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz).
“This government failed with the vaccines and in its handling of the coronavirus. The public has lost faith in the Health Minister and the Prime Minister, who change their ‘professional’ opinions three times a day, and then are surprised that the public doesn’t obey them.”
“The measures and serious restrictions the government proposed in the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee today are a slippery slope in the violation of human rights and liberties, which I have been warning about for a while.”
“With this failed and confused leadership continuing on, Israel is liable to fall even farther in its approach [to the pandemic] and find itself violating human rights in an extreme way out of all proportion, like Australia and Austria.”
Yevarkan pushed back on criticism of his comments in the committee hearing Sunday, saying he never compared Israeli policies to the Holocaust, and claims to the contrary are “ridiculous”.
“Any attempt by the ministers of this government to accuse me of attempting to compare the government’s activities to the Holocaust are ridiculous and won’t succeed.”