BICOM

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely publicly apologised last night for her comments about American Jews during an interview earlier this week on i24 News.

In a recorded video posted on Facebook, Hotovely said: “American Jewry is very important to me… it is permissible to criticise, permissible to express pain, but it is important to remember that there is only one state for the Jewish people and that is Israel, and it has a commitment to all the Jews of the world.”

She added: “I apologise if anyone was offended. The reality of life in Israel is tough, we live in a hostile expanse, and there is no similarity between the life of a child who lives under rocket fire in Sderot and the life of a child in the US. That doesn’t mean there should be a disconnect, heaven forbid.”

Hotovely caused controversy when she was asked by i24 news about the recent cancellation of a talk she was due to give at Princeton University after pressure from Jewish students who opposed her views. Hotovely said: “Maybe they are too young to remember how it feels to be a Jewish person without the Jewish homeland”.

She continued: “But there is another issue, and I think it is not understanding the complexity of the region. People that never send their children to fight for their country, most of the Jews don’t have children serving as soldiers, going to the Marines, going to Afghanistan, going to Iraq … most of them are having quite convenient lives – they don’t feel how it feels like to be attacked by rockets. And I think part of it is to actually experience what Israel is dealing with on a daily basis.”

Yesterday, the Prime Minister’s Office said: “Jews of the Diaspora are dear to us and are an inseparable part of our people. There is no place for such attacks, and her remarks do not reflect the position of the State of Israel.” Israeli journalists reported yesterday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering asking Hotovely to resign.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, called on Netanyahu to remove Hotovely from her position. Jacobs said that her remarks disqualified her from serving in her capacity and that they underscored how the Israeli government disdained the majority of North American Jews.

At yesterday’s official memorial ceremony for Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, President Reuven Rivlin spoke about the relationship between Israel and the Jewish diaspora. “We must embark on a new path … a shared commitment to justice, to Jewish and human mutual responsibility. No longer with the silencing of mutual criticism, but with courageous and sincere openness. No longer with idealisation, but with a true partnership based on a really knowing each other, and on agreed-upon institutions to solving problems, and to establish a common policy,” he said.