Tzipi Hotovely
Tzipi HotovelyHadas Parush/Flash 90

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gently reprimanded Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely Monday after her remarks about dreaming of an Israeli flag fluttering over the Temple Mount aroused controversy.

Netanyahu's bureau published a statement and stressed, without mentioning Hotovely specifically, that "the Israeli government's policy about the Temple Mount was expressed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in his statement Saturday night, and it remains unchanged. Prime Minister Netanyahu clarified that he expects that all members of the government to act in accordance with it."

Hotovely herself also published a clarification and said: "My privately held views are not the government's policy, and I am most certainly committed to its policy, as expressed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Saturday night, when he declared that there will be no change in the status quo on the Temple Mount."

MK Yoel Hasson (Zionist Union) demanded Monday that Netanyahu fire Hotovely “immediately, tonight,” over “messianic” comments she made that “could inflame the entire Middle East.”

Hotovely's “sin,” as far as Hasson is concerned, was the comment she made in an interview on the Knesset Channel earlier Monday, in which she said that her “dream is to see the Israeli flag fly atop the Temple Mount. This is the holiest site in the world for Jews.”

“Surely it would not be right to see an ISIS or Hamas flag flying there. To me that would be shameful,” Hotovely said. “We have to fly our flag. This is our capital and our holiest place.”

“Hotovely is the perfect role model for irresponsibility," Hasson charged in response.

"During a period when the overwhelming task should be to calm the situation and smooth over our relations with the Palestinians, she says things that could once again set off riots in Jerusalem, and especially on the Temple Mount. She should be fired immediately,” he wrote.