LONDON: Israel’s finance minister, who sought to “wipe out” a volatile Palestinian city, will not be meeting with Biden administration officials during his visit to the US next week, according to reports in Israeli media.
The White House announced at a press briefing on Friday that Bezalel Smotrich, who is visiting Washington for the first time since accepting his ministerial position, will not meet with US Treasury Secretary Jane Yellen or any other government officials.
Smotrich made the remarks during a conference on Wednesday, amid deadly Palestinian attacks in the occupied West Bank and a wave of Israeli settler violence.
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Smotrich replied, “I think Hawara needs to be eradicated,” when asked about a weekend settler stampede through the Palestinian village of Hawara, which an Israeli general called a “pogrom” on Tuesday.
The shooting of two Israeli brothers by a suspected Palestinian militant, which came just days after Israeli forces carried out their deadliest West Bank raid in nearly 20 years and killed 11 Palestinians in the northern city of Nablus, has sparked rampages. Acted as a catalyst.
From March 12 to 14, Smotrich will present at the annual Israel Bonds Conference in Washington.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, condemned his remarks as “an unfathomable statement of incitement to violence and hostility”, which drew widespread condemnation.
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The US State Department referred to his remarks as a call for violence and demanded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly condemn them.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, spokesman Ned Price said they were reckless, disgusting and repulsive.
“We condemn these inflammatory comments, which are also incitements to violence, just as we condemn Palestinian incitements to violence,” he said.
In a joint statement issued Friday, more than 120 American Jewish leaders demanded that Smotrich’s visit be boycotted. According to Israeli media, “he should not be given a platform in our community”.
The list of signatories to the statement demonstrated that the desire to disassociate with Smotrich extends to more mainstream elements of the Jewish community and beyond more progressive groups, who have already denied the minister a visa to visit the country. called upon to do,” The Times of Israel reported.
A joint statement “condemning in the strongest terms the heinous and violent acts committed by the settlers” was issued after representatives from 19 countries, including France, Germany, Japan and the UK, visited Hawara on Saturday.
As outrage grew, Smotrich issued a statement claiming that the media had misinterpreted him, but refused to retract his call for the village to be destroyed.
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Smotrich told local television on Saturday: “It is possible that the wording was wrong.
“When I said Hawara must be eliminated, I did not mean to harm innocents,” he tweeted on Saturday. Sometimes people inadvertently give a harsh message by using harsh expressions. Everyone experiences it.”
