Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas) demanded on Sunday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu apologize for a statement appearing to support American plans to build a wall on the Mexican border, but Netanyahu refused, Haaretz reports.
The argument between Deri and Netanyahu took place during a meeting of the heads of all coalition parties which followed the weekly cabinet meeting, according to a source who was present at the coalition leaders’ meeting, but asked to remain anonymous.
On Saturday, Netanyahu tweeted, “President Donald J. Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel's southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”
The comment may have been a direct response to comments made by Trump himself in an interview on Fox News on Thursday, in which he cited Israel’s use of border fences and other barriers to block terrorists and reduce illegal immigration from the Sinai desert as proof that the border wall with Mexico could work.
Mexico was outraged over the tweet and on Saturday night issued a sharp rebuke of Netanyahu’s comment.
"The Foreign Ministry expressed to the government of Israel, via its ambassador in Mexico, its profound astonishment, rejection and disappointment over Prime Minister Netanyahu's message on Twitter about the construction of a border wall,” it said.
"Mexico is a friend of Israel and should be treated as such by its Prime Minister," the Ministry added.
According to the source who spoke to Haaretz on Sunday, Deri and Netanyahu’s argument began when the Shas leader told Netanyahu he had received very worried messages from leaders of Mexico’s Jewish community.
“What you did created a mess, both with the Mexican government and with the Jewish community there,” Deri reportedly told Netanyahu. “Jews in Mexico even violated Shabbat to draft petitions against you.”
The argument escalated from there, the source revealed, with Netanyahu insisting that he didn’t interfere and adding, “Mexico doesn’t have a problem with the wall, but with Trump’s demand that they pay for it. And I didn’t intervene on the issue of the payment.”
Deri replied, “You have to apologize. Find a way to apologize. Maybe you can tweet your apology and be done with it.”
Netanyahu wouldn’t agree to this, the source said, and when Deri once again urged him to apologize, suggested that Deri himself could issue a statement clarifying Netanyahu’s stance on the matter. Deri agreed to do so, issuing a statement on his Twitter account in both Hebrew and Spanish.
“I’ve just spoken with Prime Minister Netanyahu about the need to continue the warm relationship between Israel and Mexico,” he wrote, according to Haaretz. “The prime minister told me that Israel hasn’t intervened in the dispute between the U.S. and Mexico over paying for the fence. We’ll continue to strengthen our relationship with Mexico, where many members of the Jewish people live with dignity.”
Deri’s clarification did not appear to satisfy Mexico, which on Sunday reportedly summoned Israel’s Ambassador to the country for a reprimand.