Israeli Parliament Is Stifling : Lawmakers Run Hot, Cold

Members of Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, suffer from headaches you don’t get from guerrilla infiltrators, hostile neighbors or an Arab uprising. No, they have some real headaches: the kind that make your temples throb, turn your brain to porridge and transform a political speech into medieval torture.

Lawmakers blame the endemic headaches on their 22-year-old Parliament building, where poor ventilation and air conditioning have earned it the nickname “the Submarine.” (Its two lower floors are partly underground.)

Throughout the building, it’s either too hot or too cold, maintenance manager Shmaryahu Eckhaus said. “If we heat the first floor where people complain of cold, the heat spreads to the second and third floors, and people there . . . feel suffocated. If we turn down the heat, people on the first floor complain of cold.”

Speaker Dov Shilansky said Friday that the problem has “a great influence” on legislators’ ability to function. “This is not a joke; it is a serious problem. I know a lot of legislators who suffer from headaches and dizziness,” Shilansky told Israel Army Radio.

Asked if this was why many of the 120 legislators often look sleepy, Shilansky said: “It’s really hard to sit here for the whole day. If you spend a whole day here, you leave with a headache.”

Experts say the solution is to break down the air conditioning system into smaller systems with individual controls in different parts of the building. But Israel Army Radio said that answer is too expensive and that Parliament doctors advise legislators to walk outside from time to time for a breath of fresh air.