This appeared to be his first public response to Smotrich’s comments since they were made public on Wednesday.
Netanyahu’s Twitter thread underscores how the Israeli leader had to balance the ideologies of far-right members of his government with the expectations of Israel’s main ally, the United States. Smotrich is the leader of one of several ultranationalist parties that help make up Netanyahu’s government, the largest right wing ever.
Jewish settlers in the West Bank last week passed through the Palestinian village of Hawara, where two Israeli brothers were killed earlier in the day in a Palestinian shooting attack. Later this week, Smotrich said the town should be liquidated – by Israeli forces and not by private citizens.
Smotrich later went back, saying that he did not mean that the city would be erased but for Israel to operate surgically inside it against Palestinian terrorists. However, his previous comments sparked international outrage. The US named them unequivocally and urged Netanyahu to “publicly and clearly reject and eliminate them.” The United Nations and Middle Eastern powerhouses Egypt and Saudi Arabia also condemned Smotrich’s comments.
In a Hebrew tweet posted around the same time, Netanyahu said even foreign diplomats make mistakes, an apparent reference to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides made disparaging comments about Smotrich. ahead of his trip to Washington this week, saying he would “throw her off the plane,” if he could. A US Embassy spokesman denied making the comments.
Smotrich, in a tweet on Saturday, said he was “sure he didn’t mean to encourage my killing when he said I had to be thrown from the plane just because I didn’t want to harm him or -guilty when I said that Hawara must be deleted. .”
In his tweets, Netanyahu wrote that “it is important for all of us to work to reduce the rhetoric” amid a wave of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
“That includes speaking out strongly against inappropriate statements and even correcting our own statements when we miss or our words are misquoted.” out of context,” he said.
Netanyahu then criticized the Palestinian Authority for not condemning Palestinian attacks against Israelis, and the international community for not demanding condemnation from the Palestinians.
Israel has been saying for a long time that the international community has a double standard of what they expected from Israel and the Palestinians. Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the east of Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, areas that the Palestinians seek for their future state. Israel maintains a 55-year, open occupation over Palestinians in the West Bank and a blockade, along with Egypt, of the Gaza Strip.
