Woman Legislator Hurt in Fistfight in Israeli Knesset
A woman member of Parliament was injured today in a fistfight in the Israeli Knesset over a meeting between leftist parliamentarians and a Soviet delegation.
Geula Cohen of the nationalist Tehiya Party said Charlie Biton of the Communist Party broke her wrist when he knocked her to the floor.
“They twisted my hand and hit me until I could hardly breathe,” Cohen told reporters. “They desecrated the name of the Knesset today. . . .”
Cohen, Yuval Neeman and Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, all of the Tehiya Party, stood in a Knesset hallway waiting for a three-member Soviet peace delegation to emerge from its meeting with Israeli legislators.
The rightists held posters naming Soviet Jewish dissidents refused permission to emigrate to Israel. When Biton grabbed a poster from Cohen, she chased him and the fighting began.
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