Navigate to News section

The Knesset Goes All ‘Mean Girls’

Someone else parking in your spot? Time to take out that lipstick.

by
Liel Leibovitz
October 25, 2017
Wikimedia Commons
The KnessetWikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
The KnessetWikimedia Commons

What do you do if you drive into work one morning and find someone else parking in your spot? The spot that’s so clearly yours? The one that has your name written on a large sign in clear, big letters? Maybe you honk. Maybe you shrug your shoulders and go park elsewhere. But if you’re an Israeli parliamentarian, you might as well take out your lipstick and go crazy on the offending cars.

This is what happened in the Knesset yesterday. The drama, worthy of an overwrought teen comedy, began when Leah Fadida, a newly sworn-in MK with the Zionist Union party, arrived at work. This being her first day and all, she wasn’t exactly clear on where she should park, so she ended up accidentally taking the spot of Ksenia Svetlova, another Zionist Union MK. When Svetlova arrived at the Knesset a short while later, she was furious to find someone else in her spot.

What happened next was captured on the parliament’s security cameras: Svetlova stormed out of her car, grabbed her lipstick from her purse, and scribbled a fierce message on Fadida’s windshield:”You can’t park in someone else’s parking spot.”

Here it is, then, because it’s Wednesday, and we could all use a moment of zen:

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.