[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text dp_text_size=”size-4″]WASHINGTON: According to the US State Department, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s demand that a Palestinian hamlet be “erased” amounted to inciting violence, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must publicly denounce it.
Smotrich, an ultranationalist in Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, made the remarks on Wednesday at a conference in the midst of an uptick in violent attacks by both Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Smotrich responded, “I think that Huwara ought to be wiped,” when questioned about a settler rampage through the Palestinian town of Huwara over the weekend that an Israeli general on Tuesday called a “pogrom”.
Smotrich added: “I think that the state of Israel needs to do it, but God forbid not individual people.”
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State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters that Smotrich’s comments “were irresponsible. They were repugnant. They were disgusting.”
Price continued: “And just as we condemn Palestinian incitement to violence, we condemn these provocative remarks that also amount to incitement to violence.”
Israel’s police have arrested 10 people for suspected involvement in the Huwara attack in which one Palestinian was killed. The rampage followed a Palestinian gun attack that killed two Israelis.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed one Palestinian and arrested six others suspected of involvement in the fatal shooting of an Israeli American in the West Bank on Monday.
After making the Huwara comments, Smotrich issued a statement saying the media had misinterpreted them, without retracting his call for the village to be erased.
“I spoke about how Huwara is a hostile village that has become a terrorist outpost” where attacks against Jews are launched daily, Smotrich said, adding it was forbidden to take the law into one’s own hands.
Smotrich continued, “I endorse a disproportionate response to any act of terrorism by the (Israeli military) and the security forces, including the deportation of the relatives of the terrorists.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
