Lapid cancels speech due to Likud hecklers, apologizes to his mother

Incoming Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid canceled the speech which he had planned to give on the Knesset plenum on Sunday afternoon, after loud heckling and screaming from opposition MKs drowned out much of the preceding speech, given by Incoming Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

Lapid still took to the podium however, in order to apologize to his mother, author Shulamit Lapid, who he said had made a special effort to come to the Knesset for the occasion.

"I’m skipping the speech I planned to deliver today because I’m here to say one thing - to ask for forgiveness from my mother," the Yesh Atid Party leader said.

"My mother is 86 years old and we did not easily ask her to make her way to Jerusalem. We did it because I assumed that you [opposition MKs] would be able to get a grip and act respectfully at this moment, and that she can witness a peaceful transition of power," Lapid said.

"When she was born, Israel did not yet exist, Tel Aviv was a town of 30,000 people and we did not have a parliament and I wanted her to be proud of Israel's democratic process. Instead, she and every other Israeli citizen is ashamed of you and has again remembered why it's time to replace you."  

Labor MK Ram Shefa tweeted a video of the chaos during Bennett's speech - during which 3 Religious Zionist Party MKs were removed from the plenum - calling it an "embarrassment by the Religious Zionist Party" and adding "you will not stop us, change is on the way."