Arab MK says police spokesman should be probed for insulting elected official in on-air spat

Ta’al leader Ahmad Tibi files a complaint against head police spokesman Aryeh Doron calling on investigators in the State Attorney’s Office to probe him, after the two got into a spat on air over police’s fatal shooting of a Bedouin man.

In a letter sent by his office to the Department of Internal Police Investigations, the longtime Arab MK says Doron “is bound to neutrality, transparency and statesmanship” and is not allowed to “insult an elected official or conduct political and moral discourse using police’s power.”

Last night, during an exchange on a Channel 13 News broadcast, Doron told Tibi to “be ashamed” and called him a “disgrace of an Israeli Knesset member” after the lawmaker likened the police to a mafia over the killing of 36-year-old Muhammad Hussein Tarabin.

Tibi replied by calling the police officer a “loser” and telling him to “shut his mouth.”

Police decried the lawmaker’s response in an official statement last night, accusing him of committing a crime by insulting a public servant. They demanded he issue an apology and threatened to take legal action if he refused.

In his letter to the DIPI, Tibi calls Doron’s statements “blatant and illegitimate intervention by a police officer in political and public discourse.”

He also accuses police of attempting to intimidate him with the threat of legal action “when it is clear that no criminal offense has been committed.”

He notes that the heated argument concerned a “fatal incident, sensitive and charged, which involved a police officer.” The fatal shooting has sparked outrage as police continue a controversial crackdown on crime in Bedouin society.