Kuwaiti Parliament Speaker slams Israel as killers of children, kicks its delegate out of IPU

Earlier at the five-day conference, Shai, deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset (parliament), had vocally objected to a report documenting – and heavily criticizing – Israel’s policy of arresting Palestinian lawmakers.

According to Palestinian figures, a total of 13 Palestinian MPs – mostly from Gaza-based Hamas – are currently languishing in Israeli prisons.

The Israeli delegation’s objection to the report, which was prepared and presented by the IPU’s human rights committee, was met by anger from al-Ghanim, who responded by calling Shai an “occupier” and “child killer”, according to Kuwait’s state news agency.

“The words uttered by this rapacious country’s ( Israel’s) representative bring to mind the well-known proverb: ‘If you have no shame, do what you want’,” al-Ghanim said.

He also said Shai and his delegation represented “the world’s most dangerous kind of terrorism – state terrorism”.

Surprising many fellow attendees, he went on to tell Shai: “You should pack your bags and leave this chamber after seeing the reaction [to Israeli actions] from the honorable parliaments of the world.”

Immediately after the Kuwaiti parliamentarian spoke, the Israeli delegation exited the conference hall.

Over the next 12 hours, video of al-Ghanim’s 45-second tirade was retweeted tens of thousands of times and received hundreds of thousands of views on Facebook.