Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Anastasia Michaeli: Gay People are Miserable

First it was scuffles and water fights in Knesset; now it’s homophobia. Anastasia Michaeli just doesn’t seem to get the conventions of normal inoffensive behavior.

You probably remember the model turned politician from the ugly saga in January when she threw a cup of water at Israeli-Arab lawmaker Raleb Majadele during a Knesset discussion. Or maybe from even earlier, when in 2010 she physically threatened another Arab lawmaker, Hanin Zuabi, a participant in the Gaza flotilla, who was talking about the activist voyage.

Today, she chirped in and declared that homosexuality results from abuse. “I think that most homosexuals are people that experience very difficult sexual abuse from a very young age,” she said in a session of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women.

In a recording it is clear that she also generalized that gay people “are miserable” and “in the end they commit suicide when they are 40.”

There’s something a bit freaky here. It was almost exactly six months ago (six months and five days) that Michaeli threw the water. It’s as if she has a checklist of minority groups to offend, and tries to tick of one every six months — Arabs, check; gays, check. Anybody know who is up next.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version