Mexico’s small Jewish community condemned the Israeli prime minister’s support for US President Donald Trump’s border wall as disappointing and shameful.
The Mexican government demanded an apology from Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, but the Israeli leader insisted that he was not referring to Mexico in his weekend message on Twitter.
“Netanyahu must apologize to the Mexican people for his disgusting statement,” the prominent historian Enrique Krauze wrote on Twitter.
Calling Netanyahu a “lackey of Trump,” Krauze said he “condemned, deplored and rejected” the prime minister’s tweet.
More than 67,000 people practiced Judaism in Mexico during the last national census in 2010, compared to 92 million Roman Catholics, the country’s main religion.
Mexico City’s economic development secretary, Salomon Chertorivsky, a descendent of Ukrainian and Polish Jewish immigrants, recalled that the Latin American nation embraced his ancestors by giving their new opportunities.
“For the thousands of stories like family’s story … the prime minister’s tweet is condemnable to me,” Chertorivsky wrote on Twitter.
“I don’t understand how somehow who today governs people who suffered the worst persecution can celebrate the persecution of another population, ours, the Mexicans,” he said.
Another city official, Simon Levy, directed a tweet at Netanyahu, saying “Mexicans seek peace and prosperity. As a Mexican Jew I regret your position. I doesn’t bring peace.”
Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said the Israeli government should apologize and “correct” its position.
US-Mexican relations plunged into the worst crisis in decades last week after Trump ordered the construction of the wall to stop illegal immigration and insisted that Mexico will pay for it.
“President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea,” Netanyahu tweeted in English, adding the Israeli and American flags.
The Central Committee of the Jewish Community of Mexico said in a weekend statement: “We strongly reject (Netanyahu’s) position.”
On Monday, the Israeli leader denied he was referring to Mexico and he accused “the left-wing media” of attacking him.
Source: AFP
