Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Friday, Sep 12, 2025

Israel’s finance minister will not meet US officials after Palestinian village comment

Israel’s finance minister will not meet US officials after Palestinian village comment

The White House has announced that Israel’s finance minister, who called for a flashpoint Palestinian town to be “erased,” will not meet officials from the Biden administration during his visit to the US next week, Israeli media reported.
Bezalel Smotrich, who will be making his first trip to Washington since taking up his ministerial position, will not meet US Treasury Secretary Jen Yellen or any other government officials, the White House told a press briefing on Friday.

Smotrich made the comments at a conference on Wednesday amid a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks and Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

When questioned about a weekend settler rampage through the Palestinian village of Hawara, which an Israeli general on Tuesday described as a “pogrom,” Smotrich said: “I think that Hawara needs to be erased.”

The rampage was sparked by the shooting of two Israeli brothers by a suspected Palestinian militant, which came days after Israeli forces launched their deadliest West Bank raid in nearly 20 years, leaving 11 Palestinians dead in the northern city of Nablus.

Smotrich is scheduled to speak at the Israel Bonds annual conference in Washington from March 12-14.

His comments had drawn international condemnation, with the UN human rights chief Volker Turk denouncing them as “an unfathomable statement of incitement to violence and hostility.”

The US State Department described his comments as an incitement to violence and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly disavow it.

“They were irresponsible, they were repugnant, they were disgusting,” spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Wednesday.

“Just as we condemn Palestinian incitement to violence, we condemn these provocative remarks that also amount to incitement to violence,” he said.

Some 120 American Jewish leaders on Friday released a joint statement calling for a boycott against Smotrich’s visit. It said he “should not be given a platform in our community,” Israeli media reported.

“The list of signatories on the statement demonstrated that the desire to disassociate with Smotrich extended to more mainstream elements of the Jewish community and well beyond the more progressive groups who already called for the minister to be denied a visa to get into the country,” The Times of Israel reported.

Representatives from 19 countries — including France, Germany, Japan and the UK — visited Hawara on Saturday and issued a joint statement “condemn(ing) in the strongest terms the heinous and violent acts committed by settlers."

'I did not mean harm'

Following the growing outrage, Smotrich issued a statement saying the media had misinterpreted them, without retracting his call for the village to be erased.

“It is possible that the word was wrong,” Smotrich told local television on Saturday.

“I did not mean harm to innocents when I said that Hawara should be wiped out,” he tweeted Saturday. "People sometimes use harsh expressions that they don't mean to convey a harsh message. It happens to everyone."
Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
High-Stakes Trump-Putin Summit on Ukraine Underway in Alaska
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
Sam Altman challenges Elon Musk with plans for Neuralink rival
Australia to Recognize the State of Palestine at UN Assembly
The Collapse of the Programmer Dream: AI Experts Now the Real High-Earners
Armenia and Azerbaijan to Sign US-Brokered Framework Agreement for Nakhchivan Corridor
British Labour Government Utilizes Counter-Terrorism Tools for Social Media Monitoring Against Legitimate Critics
WhatsApp Deletes 6.8 Million Scam Accounts Amid Rising Global Fraud
Nine people have been hospitalized and dozens of salmonella cases have been reported after an outbreak of infections linked to certain brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada
Texas Residents Face Water Restrictions While AI Data Centers Consume Millions of Gallons
Tariffs, AI, and the Shifting U.S. Macro Landscape: Navigating a New Economic Regime
India Rejects U.S. Tariff Threat, Defends Russian Oil Purchases
United States Establishes Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile
Thousands of Private ChatGPT Conversations Accidentally Indexed by Google
China Tightens Mineral Controls, Curtailing Critical Inputs for Western Defence Contractors
OpenAI’s Bold Bet: Teaching AI to Think, Not Just Chat
BP’s Largest Oil and Gas Find in 25 Years Uncovered Offshore Brazil
JPMorgan and Coinbase Unveil Partnership to Let Chase Cardholders Buy Crypto Directly
×