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Saturday, March 04, 2023 09:44 PM
Extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich took two steps back today, Saturday, describing his statements earlier this week regarding the erasure of the Palestinian town of “Hwara” as a “slip of the tongue” resulting from “an outpouring of feelings,” as he put it.
Smotrich’s retraction of his statements came following Arab and Western condemnations of his statements, and the demand of Palestinian officials to prosecute him internationally for his statements, which clearly incite the perpetration of a massacre once morest the Palestinians.
Schmotrich, one of the most prominent ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, said – in a statement to the Israeli Channel 12 today – that his choice of words “was not correct.”
However, Smotrich refrained from describing the aggression of the settlers in the town of “Hawwara” and their burning of dozens of homes, cars and shops, as “acts of terrorism.”
American Jews and influential organizations in the United States had called on the administration of US President Joe Biden not to grant Smotrich a visa to enter the United States to attend an economic conference scheduled for later this month, which prompted the US administration to announce that there were no scheduled meetings with Smotrich with officials. Americans during his visit.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price has described Smotrich’s remarks as disgusting.
