The head of the extremist Jewish Power party was forcefully removed from the Knesset on Monday night after hurling racist abuse at Arab Deputy Speaker Ahmad Tibi.
The incident began when Ben-Gvir went to the podium to speak at a debate on public health during the pandemic and refused to address Tibi - who was chairing in place of Speaker Mickey Levy - as “sir”.
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Itamar Ben-Gvir being forcefully evicted from the plenum while being reprimanded by Speaker Mickey Levy
Tibi said in response that this was the direction of the speaker and asked the Jewish Power leader to “stop escalating further.”
Ben-Gvir then lashed out at Tibi for saying that “Jews will not enter Al Aqsa Mosque,”and called him “a terrorist” who “should be in parliament in Syria.”
This led Tibi to demand that Ben-Gvir step down from the podium and when he refused Levy was summoned along with members of the Knesset security detail who had to forcefully remove Ben-Gvir from the chamber.
Ben-Gvir later doubled down on his remarks, saying: "There is no clause in the Knesset regulations that requires that we address the person conducting the meeting as 'sir'. Certainly not if he is a terrorist who was Yasser Arafat's adviser and should be in parliament in Syria."
"Tibi illegally used his power to kick me out, so I demand that the Knesset speaker remove him as deputy. Anyone who uses the plenum guards as a political battering ram should not be the deputy speaker of the Knesset," Ben-Gvir said.
MK Tibi said in response: "For the more than 20 years I have been in the Knesset, I have never seen anything like this. An MK calling a Knesset deputy speaker a ‘terrorist’” and coming to blows with the plenum’s guards."
He added: “This is disgusting, violent and racist behavior that must be stopped. [There has to be] zero tolerance for such behavior. This incident will be passed to the Knesset Ethics Committee when it is formed.”