Arab MK Tibi removed from podium (file)
Arab MK Tibi removed from podium (file)Israel news photo: Knesset Channel

The Knesset's Ethics Committee ruled Tuesday morning that MK Ahmed Tibi (Raam-Taal) would be distanced from the Knesset plenum and committees for seven days.

The ban is Tibi's punishment for crude remarks he made regarding MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beitenu) following the incident in which she intentionally spilled water on MK Raleb Majadle (Labor). 

MK Tibi, whom nationalists have defined as a "fifth column," said in a one-minute speech to the plenum last week that MK Michaeli's "plumbing has gotten messed up."

The MK -- a former gynecologist and a longtime aide to PLO founder Yasser Arafat -- said that Michaeli "grew up in the manure rows of Yisrael Beitenu" and explained that there was a logical progression from her so-called "Muezzin bill" that would limit the use of loudspeakers in minarets to the water incident, in which she "ran amok with a glass of water." This was an excuse for him to play on the Hebrew word for "glass" and the word "amok" – which, uttered together, sound like a particularly vile Arabic curse.

Michaeli has been distanced from the plenum and committees for an entire month following the water incident.