Animal Rights Discussed in the Knesset

This past week, Haaretz reported that the Israeli Knesset rejected a bill that would have renamed Israel's Animal Welfare Law as the Animal Rights Law. "The proposed law is based on the unacceptable premise that animals have rights," one opponent told the Knesset.

MK Yoel Hasson (Kadima), who proposed the bill, realized that it would not pass this time around and had tried changing the bill to remove the term "animal rights." He said he will try again to get this bill passed in six months.

The highlight of the article is the input from Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, a dog guardian who reportedly "showed great interest in the debate." He said, "I do not know what I would do to a person who killed my [dog] Stephan." The speaker of the Knesset also explained that he is a longtime vegetarian:

I do not eat meat, I am a vegetarian for ethical reasons. My dog was taken to a kennel since he bit someone, or someone thought he had bit them. The kennel was next to a slaughterhouse. When I saw how they were slaughtering animals, I became a vegetarian. That was more than 40 years ago.