A heated exchange took place in the Knesset between Minister May Golan and MK Merav Ben Ari.
Golan accused Ben Ari: “Once again, this woman comes up to speak, after I told her she screams at me like a chicken. I honor her here today despite her obsession with me, but I will nevertheless call her ‘the disappointed MK.’ Why? Because after seven years in the Knesset with no one genuinely considering promoting her, she is still mainly here to cause trouble, like gum stuck to one's shoe that cannot be removed. Last week, she came up to speak and, as usual, the imbecile disparaged me endlessly.”
Likud secretary Aliza Barashi attempted to cut Golan off, but Golan objected. “I have the right to speak here as long as I would like, and as long as I need. Don't bother me.”
MK Ben Ari spoke immediately thereafter, and responded to the accusations. “I have been here since 2015 and never seen such a shameful display. This is disgrace. I sat here deliberately, without leaving, listening to everything so that I will never forget this embarrassing, lowly, petty, and repulsive incident.”
“I may have to sign a dozen times for subsidies at the Labor Ministry, as a single working mother with a mortgage, but I would never put a half-naked picture of myself on a disc cover, even if I was young and stupid,” she said, referencing a recent viral social media post claiming to show Minister Golan modeling a revealing costume for an album cover.
Golan had previously responded to the claims about the album cover, saying that it had been artificially created:“Yes, twenty years ago I allowed my face to be used on a disc cover for a wholly humorous song that was published. That's what happens in the irresponsible teenage years, you do foolish things. Attempting to embarrass me with that will not succeed. I am neither embarrassed nor regret anything I did. I was a brave young woman, modern and mainly without direction. Anything I did brought me to be who I am today, including the foolish things.”
She also published several additional images depicting her face digitally superimposed over women dressed in a wide variety of costumes, warning that people should not be quick to get excited about pictures they see on the internet.
Ben Ari would later go on to post about it on X as well: “May Golan talked to me in the plenum for forty minutes. She doesn't have a time limit and so can spew insults indiscriminately. She prepared a disgusting speech about me. Throughout the deliberations, I sat in the plenum and listened, but never reacted. She doesn't deserve that. She hurled insult after insult, the most personal and petty of things, and the only thing that hurts me is that unfortunately my mother heard all of it. This is the woman appointed to advance the status of women, and she has done nothing, and is disgusting and insulting without end. I mostly just feel sorry for her.”