Avigdor Lieberman said the Esterina Tartman affair should be "put in proportion," and so it should. The affair is not as threatening as the Iranian nuclear program, nor as tragic as the capture of three IDF soldiers (these are but two of the examples Lieberman gave).

All the same, the candidate for tourism minister in the Israeli government is a swindler and a fraud. It is hard to imagine MK Tartman swearing allegiance and undertaking to honor the laws of the state unless this oath has lost all meaning.

The question is not whether Tartman has this degree or another, therefore all the vigorous activity to prove that she did study for the first degree in some institution is superfluous. Tartman lied knowingly when she claimed to have a bachelor's degree from Bar-Ilan University and a master's degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. This is not a "mishap," as Lieberman calls it, nor is it "words said in heat." MK Tartman made statements to this effect in her own voice more than once. It is not necessary to have a degree to become a minister, but it is advisable that a minister, even a Knesset member, not be a fraud.

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The attorney general, who has been called to examine Tartman's deceitful pretenses, can save his time. Everyone can also stop whining and accusing the media of persecution. It is the media's duty to check affairs of public interest and it is a pity they don't do it more often, because one may assume that Tartman is not the only sham. Now that the affair has been exposed, it requires a great deal of impertinence to sling mud at those who exposed it. But this has become routine in Israeli public life recently. Tartman may even gain more sympathy from her constituents just for being branded "persecuted."

One should hope the appointment for tourism minister is struck off the agenda. If, however, Tartman insists on it, the Knesset members should do their duty and vote against the appointment. The prime minister has taken an inexplicable, feeble position of not intervening, as though he has no overall responsibility for his cabinet and its integrity.

One cannot blame the High Court of Justice for excessive intervention in the Knesset and the government's work if those authorities fail to eject unsuitable persons themselves.

Esterina Tartman is unworthy of being tourism minister from every possible aspect. Nor is she worthy of being a Knesset member. The woman who conquered the public arena in a racist storm, proposed to oust Knesset members for not singing the national anthem and said the appointment of an Arab minister was "raising an axe on the trunk called Zionism" falsified her curriculum vitae. She must be ejected from public life.

There is no mechanism to dismiss a Knesset member unless he has been criminally convicted. But it is hard to accept a situation in which the legislative body - which determines what is forbidden and permitted for the rest of the country's citizens - should be the seat of frauds.