Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not meet with foreign leaders who meet with organizations working against Israeli soldiers, he told Likud lawmakers on Monday, according to Israeli media.
“I say to the leaders of the world, you can meet with organizations working against Israeli soldiers, but not with me. We take this stance with our best of friends. Choose. So they are learning to choose,” Netanyahu was quoted as having said.
Netanyahu late last month cancelled a meeting with German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, after the minister met members of the leftist organizations Breaking the Silence and B’Tselem a day after Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Gabriel told journalists in Jerusalem after the snub he regretted Netanyahu's decision, but also said he did not think it would badly impact relations between the two countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel subsequently backed Gabriel, saying she often meets civil society groups during her foreign travels and adding the dispute "changes nothing in our conviction that support for the state of Israel is part of our raison d'etat."