PM blames ‘leftist media’ for fabricating Mexico ‘crisis’
Netanyahu says distortion of border wall tweet part of ‘Bolshevik’ hunt against him • Mexico wants apology
While a mini diplomatic crisis with Mexico began brewing as a result of his Saturday night tweet about the US wall with Mexico, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hunkered down on Monday by blaming the “leftist media” for distorting the intent of his tweet.
Netanyahu, speaking at the Likud faction meeting in the Knesset, said that US President Donald Trump praised the wall Israel built along the border with Egypt during an interview.
“He said that it stopped almost completely illegal infiltration into Israel, and I said in response that he was correct,” Netanyahu said. “And in response, he retweeted what I said.” And from that, he continued, pundits “made mountains out of that molehill in the media.”
“President Trump is right,” Netanyahu tweeted Saturday night. “I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.” At the end of the tweet were pictures of an Israeli flag and an American flag.
It did not take the Mexican Foreign Ministry or the local Jewish community long to react to that tweet. Even before pundits began writing about the tweet and its impact on Israeli-Mexican relations, the Mexican Foreign Ministry released a statement conveying its “deepest dismay, rejection and disappointment” over the Twitter message. Representatives of the Mexican Jewish community, who very rarely take public issue with Israel, also slammed the tweet.
Netanyahu told the Likud faction that the same analysts who made a big deal over his tweet were the ones who had earlier said that he should have given up vital Israeli security assets to ensure a good relationship with former president Barack Obama.
“And now they’re saying that I insulted Mexico, that I destroyed the relationship with them,” he said.
“Who was relating to Mexico?” he asked of his tweet. “We had, and will have, good relations with them,” he said. “Even when we had true disagreements with them, like their vote in UNESCO, not fabricated ones.”
This was a reference to Mexico’s vote on a UNESCO resolution in October that expunged any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount.
Mexico’s Foreign Minister
Luis Videgaray called Israel’s ambassador to Mexico, Jonathan Peled, to a meeting on Monday to discuss the matter. Before that meeting, he called on Netanyahu to apologize, something government sources said was highly unlikely.
“I would ask Prime Minister Netanyahu how many walls has President Trump said he wants to build?” Videgaray said in a television interview, saying the wall in Netanyahu’s tweet was obviously a reference to the one Trump wants to build on the US border with Mexico.
“It’s obvious he was referring to the relationship with Mexico, and we should be serious and assume responsibility for what we say,” he said, adding that an apology “would be appropriate in this case.”
He added that while Israel is a “close friend,” it was “absolutely incomprehensible that its prime minister should express himself in this way, which frankly we consider an aggression.”
Netanyahu told the Likud faction that the media’s focus on the current issue with Mexico deflects from the real issue, which he said is “the fantastic success of the wall that we built in the south to stop infiltration, a success that the world – and first and foremost the president of the United States – appreciates.”
Netanyahu said that the media’s focus on Mexico does not surprise him. “The leftist media is mobilized in a Bolshevik campaign, of brainwashing and character assassination, against me and my family,” he said. “This is happening every day and every night. They are creating a flood – there is no other word for it – of fake news.”
The prime minister said the media are applying continuous and unprecedented pressure on the attorney-general to issue an indictment against him, “at any price.”
“There has never been anything like this in the history of the state,” he said. “It is doubtful if there has ever been anything like this in the history of democratic states.”
Netanyahu said that the reason this is being done is because the Left has had control of the media and other centers of power “in an undemocratic way” since the establishment of the state.
“I am the first prime minister from the Right who is trying to change that, who dares to try to change that,” he said. “And therefore, they are doing everything they can to get rid of me, and perpetuate a continuation of the control by the Left of the centers of power, in opposition to the will of the voters, who are mostly right-wing. We will not let then, they will not succeed.•