President Reuven Rivlin is expected to speak on the phone on Tuesday with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to try to smooth over tensions between the countries over Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s expression of support to the building of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
On Monday evening, Israel's ambassador to Mexico, Jonathan Peled, met with Mexico’s Deputy Foreign Minister after he was summoned for a reprimand. The Foreign Ministry said following the meeting that "it was agreed to continue the negotiations in order to settle things and continue the good relations between the two countries."
The saga began this past Saturday, when Netanyahu wrote on Twitter, “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 appeared to 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.
Nevertheless, Mexico responded with anger and 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,” said the Mexican Foreign Ministry.
"Mexico is a friend of Israel and should be treated as such by its Prime Minister," it added.
On Monday, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray demanded that Netanyahu apologize for the tweet.
Videgaray said that the Prime Minister's tweet "felt like an aggressive act," adding, "We hope that the Israeli government will have the sensitivity to correct Netanyahu's statement."
Netanyahu downplayed the crisis in Israel-Mexico relations on Monday, saying that the media had blown the issue out of proportion and that he had merely commented on Trump's praise of the fence Israel constructed on its southern border with Egypt.
"President Trump praised the fence which was built under my guidance on our border with Egypt. He said it almost completely stopped illegal infiltration into Israel. And I said in response that he was right. And in response he retweeted the things I said. The media commentators have blown it out of proportion," Netanyahu declared.