MK Tali Gottlieb (Likud) referred in her speech in the Knesset plenum to the discriminatory treatment men receive, according to her, as part of divorce proceedings.
“If I had let the hatred that grips you when they want to leave you or jealousy, hatred and the ugliest feelings lead me through the divorce proceedings, I could have left my ex-husband, who is an amazing father to our three children, I could have left him with nothing,” MK Gottlieb said.
“Because under the auspices of Israeli law, men have no chance in divorce proceedings,” she claimed. “Listen carefully, I don’t care what you say here, I made it my goal to be a mouthpiece for fathers in Israel, that their right to parent and be a father is my right to be a mother. I am not better than a man. A man is not inferior to me nor less than me. A man committed suicide this week hanging over one of the intersections, it didn’t make headlines because it doesn’t bother anyone.”
“I came on the day of the opposition’s filibuster to tell you that we have an obligation to take care of the children of Israel first and foremost,” she added. “Because divorce is a nightmare and it’s a tragedy and it broke every dream, but with all due respect the children and they alone are the basis of this process and we owe them equal co-parenting to fathers and mothers.”
“It will not be allowed for a family court to continue conducting the hearings behind closed doors, when everything is done there in the dark,” she said. “The rights of fathers in Israel cannot be harmed just because they are men. We will do it even if all the women’s organizations in Israel stand on my head. The children of Israel are entitled to fathers and mothers in their lives.”