Israeli deputy minister’s rapped for US Jewry digs
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rapped his deputy foreign minister for “offensive” remarks in which she said US Jews were too “comfortable” to understand threats to Israel.
Tzipi Hotovely of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party apologised later on Israeli public television.
“I apologise from the depth of my heart if anyone was upset by my words,” she said, adding in a video message on her Facebook page that she did not intend to offend the American Jewish community.
In an interview on Tel Avivbased i24News TV channel, Hotovely had been quizzed Wednesday on the growing gulf between Israel and US Jewry, particularly youth.
“Maybe they’re too young to remember how it feels to be a Jewish person without a Jewish homeland, without a Jewish state,” she said in English, adding that US Jewry “never send their children to fight for their country”.
“Most of the Jews don’t have children serving as soldiers, going to the marines, going to Afghanistan or to Iraq,” she said.
“Most of them are having quite a convenient life, they don’t feel how it feels to be attacked by rockets.”
US- educated Netanyahu, who is also foreign minister, described his deputy’s comments as offensive.
“There is no place for such attacks, and her remarks do not reflect the position of the State of Israel,” an English-language government statement quoted him as saying.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemns Tzipi Hotovely’s offensive remarks regarding the American Jewish community,” it added. — AFP