Netanyahu denies praising Trump’s plan for Mexican border wall

Netanyahu refuted the claim that he implicitly praised Trump’s plan to build a border wall between the US and Mexico, accusing those in the media of intentionally attempting to smear him. 

During a Likud party meeting on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempted to clarify his Saturday night tweet in which he praised Trump’s remarks on border security in an interview with Fox News commentator Sean Hannity.

“Who even mentioned Mexico?,” Netanyahu asked rhetorically when referencing his tweet. “We had good relations with them and will continue to. Analysts made mountains out of that molehill in the media.”

Responding to Trump’s mentioning of Israel’s fence as a model to prevent illegal immigration, Netanyahu had written on Twitter that “President Trump is right, I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.”

“President Trump hailed the fence that was built under my guidance on our border with Egypt,” Netanyahu said, in explanation of his tweet. “(Trump) said that it almost entirely halted illegal infiltration into Israel, and I said in response that he is right, and in reaction to my comments he retweeted the things that I said.”

But senior officials in Mexico did not interpret the tweet that way. Mexico’s foreign ministry expressed “its profound astonishment, rejection and disappointment over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s message on Twitter about the construction of a border wall.”

The Mexican Foreign Minister, Luis Videgaray Caso, said that Netanyahu’s tweet felt like an “act of aggression,” and he called upon the Israeli government to be “sensitive enough to correct Netanyahu’s statement.”

At Monday’s meeting in the Knesset, Netanyahu also accused analysts and members of the media for being “mobilized on a Bolshevik hunt, dedicated to brainwashing and character assassination against me and my family.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s Ambassador to Mexico, Jonathan Peled, has been summoned by Videgaray Caso for a discussion on Monday of the matter.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

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